The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Is Vintage Audio Any Good?

My Audio Adventures Part I
My Audio Adventures Part II
This is Part III

Nice, but seriously?

Well, "Open Mike" is back. Last week I tried to write about climate change. That's why there was no "Open Mike" last week. Abort! Abort! Danger, Will Robinson.

This week, a mild and friendly question: Is vintage audio any good?

I've discovered a splendid (if expensive) vintage audio store near me, Audio Ventures, run by Bill Waara and his nephew Andy (they just have a basic website and don't do much online). They specialize in rebuilding old JBL speakers, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg: first of all, Bill is a bonafide speaker designer if you ask me. Many of his "rebuilt" speakers are essentially all-new designs, with carefully selected modern drivers and completely rebuilt crossovers. And he's a very good speaker designer, too. Occasionally, Bill builds one-of-a-kind custom speakers from the ground up. In my second post about him (link above), I published a portrait of him standing next to his grandest Waaras yet. I got to hear those again the other day, always a treat.

The store also traffics in vintage audio: selected rebuilt vintage components from the 1960s to the 1980s. The Golden Age, mainly, the 1970s. Lots of McIntosh stuff, old silverface receivers. Bill and Andy go through everything, test it, and replace all the parts that need replacing. In fact, with many of the fancier components (a truly stunning Harmon-Kardon Citation tube amp for example) there is a little baggie sitting on the shelf next to the component that contains all the old parts they replaced! In fact the only problem with that store is that its following tends to suck the best pieces out of it at a rapid rate, and I don't get to go back and reacquaint with them. (Sniff. You mean it's not actually a museum?)

Basic problemos
The best book about vintage photography is this one, which is a delightful read even if you're never going to buy an older camera. I note, sadly, that dear old Ivor has gone out of print, but used copies are still cheap. A nice title for any cameraphile's library.

I was never a true nut about it, but I liked dabbling in vintage. I'd never shoot exclusively with a Zeiss Contessa or a Leica IIIf, but I sure enjoyed getting to know them. Vintage photography has suffered a mighty axe-blow recently. So many of us have migrated to digital that "vintage" isn't really much of an option any more, because all vintage equipment is film equipment. If you don't do film any more, then you don't do vintage, either. I miss that.

Not so with audio. There's a good-sized subculture of people who love old '70s equipment, some of whom collect it. And there seems to be a healthy number of both professional and amateur restorers, "techs" like Bill who specialize in breathing new life into old electronics.

As with many old cameras, there seems to be one basic problem with vintage electronics. Namely, they're old, and old things need to be revived—and the reviving, if you're not competent to do it yourself and don't want to learn, is expensive. And then, the rebuilt piece doesn't necessarily hold its value. There's no guarantee to a future buyer that the restoration was done competently or extensively. Lots of pieces on Ebay say "completely restored!" when what they mean is that somebody opened the top, blasted the dust off, and spritzed the controls with DeoxIT. The really good techs tend to be either very expensive or very busy—one famous Marantz restorer in Montana closed his waiting list when it exceeded four years! And of course the restored piece is competing on price with unrestored pieces, which can run the gamut in terms of condition, from fine to trashed and inoperable.

Sansui AU-717, 1977. Photo by Lloyd Naftolin.

So let's say you buy a pre-amp for $100. You then pay $300 to have it rehabilitated by an expert professional electronics technician who specializes in that brand. You then have a piece that's worth...$100, more or less. Maybe $200, to someone you can convince of the worthiness of the servicing.

Same thing with most old cameras. It really only makes economic sense to restore things when the restoration cost is a relatively minor component of the entire cost.

So why do it? Well, there's one other reason for restoration: so that you then have a restored vintage component that you can enjoy.

The big Q
And here we come to my question. How good is that old stuff really?

What I've found is that there are an awful lot of empty claims online, but very little in the way of definitive comparisons. Lots of enthusiasts say the stuff is good "for the money"; some think everything old is better than anything new; some assume that everything new is better and that the old stuff is junk.

Here again, you run into the condition issue. If you find a Sansui receiver at a yard sale, hook it up, listen to it, then conclude that it sounds bad, you really haven't learned anything. It can be working without working well; capacitors just don't last thirty years. To know how a vintage component really sounds, you have to evaluate a restored one. One that is known to be operating in optimal condition.

And there's such a market for this stuff that the more famous pieces are actually getting quite pricey. I saw an old direct-drive Sansui turntable offered on eBay yesterday for nearly a cool $1,000! The kind of thing people used to brag about finding for $80 at a thrift store. And then, of course, you're getting close to competing with new alternatives. You can buy a pretty good new turntable for a grand.

So you can buy the integrated amp that my brother and I both owned in the '80s, a Sansui AU-717, which turns out to be a pretty well-regarded piece, almost a high point for Sansui. But then after factoring in the cost for professional restoration, why not just buy a new NAD, for instance, or the nifty new PM6004 from the revived Marantz, which seems to have everything I want in an amp and modern binding posts and an IEC power cord socket to boot?

If all this sounds ominous to you, it does to me too. My friend Oren Grad introduced me to the concept of "demystification," which is like the ultimate Pandora's box for rationalization. His idea is that to really get a handle on something, you just have to experiment with it yourself and try out all the various alternatives—and that that's all part of the education and the fun. That's why Oren has 29 old view cameras...and why I might just need to try out a few pieces of vintage audio gear, just to see what I can find out for myself.

Stay tuned for Part IV of my audio adventures, at some unspecified point in the future.

Oh, and if you happen to want a vintage McIntosh piece, or a glorious Citation V, or a Pioneer receiver the size of a coffe table that has more lights and silvery metal bits than a Starship, call Bill at 262/896-9000. Tell him I sent ya.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that appears only, but not always, on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave: "While I am no audiophile, I do note a difference in the tonality of sound from vintage equipment. To me, it has a deeper, richer sound, particularly in the bass, than modern digital sound technology. Is it so much better that I am wiling to invest in vintage gear? Speaking personally, no, but I can see why someone would.

"Besides, with all these vintage cameras piled up on my shelves, where would I put audio equipment?"

Nigel: "Love this sh*t. It's certainly not about the money—I've spent a couple of hundred on fettling an old Pentax LX which is probably worth now what I paid for it before getting it sorted. But now it works. So what? If I buy a new camera tomorrow, it's not going to be worth more than a percentage of the purchase price within twelve months. Why would something a few decades old be any different?"

erik: "Affordable, pretty good turntables start at even lower prices. It's not in the RP3 league, but not that far off. So, it starts at around $400."

Mike replies: I agree...I got a lot of enjoyment out of a Music Hall MMF-2. Quite obvious flaws, but the sound was alive and deeply enjoyable. Those have risen steadily in price but they aren't much more than $400 either now. Of course inexpensive turntables mostly make sense if you already have a bunch of records....

Martsharm: "I own a decent example of that Sansui turntable. It sounds pretty good, but I wouldn't pay $1,000 for one. Mine cost £150. It is, however, something of a technical tour-de-force. The quartz-locked electromagnetic drive unit uses a micro-slotted disc with an optical feedback loop to give a torquey, solid timing lock, the main advantage of the sadly almost-defunct direct-drive design philosophy. The disadvantage to such a design is the drive electronics being directly underneath the middle of the platter—use of unshielded cartridges means an unpleasant hum intrudes the closer the tonearm gets to the centre of the record! The other disadvantage to the turntable is the non-removable tonearm and audio cable: although these were touted as being high-quality items at the time, they seem like so much so-so '70s design in hindsight. The turntable is susceptible to external vibration so benefits from an isolation platter...failing that a couple of tennis balls cut in half would do! It's a solid thing which engenders a warm sense of ownership—it was a flagship product at the time and weighs a fair bit—but there's always the niggling doubt that one day it will simply refuse to switch on due to a dry joint or similar, and I'll have a very large paperweight on my hands. But I'd much rather live with that frisson of excitement than spend much more on something modern, reliable, yet with far less soul."

Open Mike: Awed and Appalled

So I mentioned Saturday is my day for doing chores.

And what follows is going to make me look really bad. But I can't help it; the empiricist in me won out. It tilted the scales against the embarrassment potential. (Hey, I'm a blogger. When all is said and done.)

Actually, it might make you look kinda bad, too.

It's not often I'm blown away by new technology. (Although I admit I think it's pretty cool that my iPad syncs with my Kindle to keep my place in a book.) I certainly never thought modern technology would amaze me in the form of....

Well, a vacuum cleaner. 

I got a new vacuum cleaner. As you know if you've been following along (and why wouldn't you be? My housecleaning woes make for such a gripping saga*), I've had problems with the carpet. It's been creating dust in the house. This was scientifically proved by means of an indoor air test.

It wasn't an easy purchase to make. I have an old but functioning vacuum cleaner which is not broken. Finally, though, I figured maybe 25 years was long enough to keep one vacuum cleaner. You may insert your own joke here about how infrequently it might or might not have been used during that time period.

Anyway...well, rather than tell, allow me to show. The obliges you to look at pictures of my horrible carpet, and for that I humbly beg your pardon. I know it's bad. That's the whole point of the current remodeling project, to get rid of the old nay ancient carpeting which is both odious and hideous and replace it with beautiful, sanitary 21st-century flooring. I'm trying here.

But I digress.

Not one but two of the young employees at Best Buy wanted to bend my ear at length about how marvelous Dyson vacuum cleaners are. My read was that this wasn't just salesmanship...although it may have partly been that. One salesperson in particular, a high-energy and obviously very smart young man named Kyle, seemed authentically enthusiastic. It took several weeks for them to actually extract my money from my wallet (I use magnetized money—it sticks), but Kyle essentially had me sold when he mentioned that he and his wife had cleaned their living room with their previous favorite vacuum cleaner, a Bissell, and then went over the same area again with their new Dyson and it pulled up a lot more dirt. (They had a baby learning to crawl at the time, so a clean carpet was important to them.)

So I bought one. This one—a Dyson DC41 Animal. So-called because it's specifically made for houses with pets.

You might think it's expensive, but oh no. Keep reading.

30x40-inch dog bed defined the test area.

Wondering how my vacuum cleaner would stand up against a similar test, I thought I'd try Kyle's experiment. Admittedly, I would be pitting the Dyson not against a late-model Bissell but against an antediluvian economy Hoover that cost $129 during the Reagan administration. Even so, I started out skeptical (my default setting).

The picture above is of the dog's bed, which sits near my chair in the living room so she can lie down in between barking at all the dogs that appear in TV commercials. It's 40x30 inches (101x76 cm) in size. This is in a trafficked area of the LR, so it's vacuumed whenever I vacuum. Admittedly, that is not very often, but what I'm trying to say here is that it's not an out-of-the-way corner where dust is allowed to run riot and accumulate unmolested.

The frankly awful carpet must have been a commercial remnant—like something you'd find in a low-rent office building circa 1989

So, first, we (the organizer, Connie, and I) thoroughly vacuumed the rectangle of carpet where the dog's bed was—the cheap, old, thin carpet—that is, the carpet that has no thick nap with lots of places for dust to hide—with my inexpensive 25-year-old Hoover. We gave it a thorough going-over.

So that area was "clean." You with me?

It looked "clean."

(By the way—since it would be natural for someone to ask, given what you're about to see—the Hoover does work. It makes a fine racket like a good vacuum cleaner should, it picks up dirt off the floor, it makes the floor look better, and eventually its bag fills up with dusty schmutz—or is it schmutzy dust? I shouldn't ask questions.)

So, back to our little test. We went over the area we had already cleaned with the new Dyson Animal. Still with me? I'll say it again. We re-vacuumed, using the Dyson, the 30x40-inch rectangle of carpet we had just vacuumed repeatedly with the ancient Hoover. No cheating, just that little bitty area. Connie can attest to this.

And we got this:

Holy suction, Batman.

WHAT?!? That's what was left behind after I used to vacuum??

Seriously—are you kidding me?

I absolutely would not have believed this if I hadn't done the test myself. I am amazed.

Well, okay, I am also kind of repelled and appalled. I've been living with that much dirt in my carpet?? Yeeeech.

But mainly amazed.

Man. Un-be-effing-lievable. Admit it, those of you who are British are just wishing you were American right now, so you could respond appropriately by going "That thing is aaawwwesome!"

My tired old Hoover sucked I'm sure.

But the DC41 Animal really, really sucks. (Bah-dum-pah.)

Mike
(Thanks to Connie Eastman, Organizer Extraordinaire)

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that appear only, but not always, on Sundays.

*Satire Alert

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Malcolm Myers: "I've had a Dyson now for about 13 years and I like it a lot. It also pleases me that someone was able to rejuvenate a stagnant product sector (vacuum cleaners) with some great design and engineering and beat the big boys at their own game. I'm sure you won't regret your purchase!"

Richard Parkin: "'...Those of you who are British...." No, we are laughing because you are using a British-designed vacuum cleaner. Dyson is the new Hoover."

Bernard Scharp: "The Dyson does have some purple fringing, however...."

Mark Layne: "We Purchased a Dyson Animal cannister two weeks ago. We have a 14-year-old retriever who sheds a lot. Unbelievable—the hair even comes up from between floorboards."

Paul McCann: "Well. IMHO, you wont get 25 years out of the Dyson. They're not known as Die-soons over here for nothing. Hold on to your receipt. SWMBO swears by Miele and they have a pet special also."

Cmans: "Holy dog droppings! When you wrote that you were wondering if your current vacuum cleaner would stand up under a test, I immediately wondered what you were currently using and your picture confirmed my wildest fears. You were using the exact same model appliance my mother gave me 20 plus years ago as as housewarming gift when I got my first apartment. I will second that the machine makes wonderful vacuum cleaner noises and yes, doesn't seem to be a slouch, and I still have and use the machine occasionally. But my wife purchased a hyperventilating, hyperbaric mongo hepa filtered vacuum that also seems to end up with exactly the same assortment of detritus that your D machine has produced, including a corn broom stalk, and I have never used a corn broom in my current abode (or was that a piece of uncooked spaghetti?).

"The curious thing is that you can vacuum the same area a week later and it seems that the same detritus will appear in the same place even though no one had entered that area in that week, leading me to conclude that either said detritus mulches itself and spreads over time under the nap of the rug like the root network of a fine fescue, or the machine itself has some sort of electrostatic detritus generator. I guess the true test would be to vacuum over hard surfaces, but why waste the effort?

"By the way when I saw the first picture with the person operating the machine I asked myself 'wow, does he really paint his toenails?'"

Mike replies: I really don't.

Will Whitaker (partial comment): "Interesting to note in your credits that Connie's last name is Eastman. Seems very fitting for a photography blog."

Mike replies: And her brother Michael Eastman is a photographer, too. And a very good one.

Ilkka: "$400 for a Dyson vacuum is damn expensive. $1200 for n ƒ/2.8 zoom is kinda cheap. $4000 for a Leica lens is ok. $400 for a lens hood for the same Leica lens is also okay, since it is Leica original. Something wrong with the relative value of money."

Can You Help?

I've been busy (well...) sending out press releases all day—to galleries, collector lists, and other websites.

Wanna help out? Here's the press release as a PDF file....

Download Lastdyesale

With press releases, you can copy and paste, repost, rewrite, anything you want as long as you get the facts straight...no copyright restrictions need be observed.

Anyway, if you want to, and you can think of a place to do it (any photo website, forum you hang out on, home page, etc.), please help spread the word! Thanks.

—Mike, TOP PR Ninja Warlord*

*Satire Alert.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's link

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Open Mike: Wanna Play?

Efren ("The Magician") Reyes of the Phillippines, master 9-ball pro.
Photo by Vinod Divikaran.

Anyone want to play some pool?

I'm not actually joking. My doctor says I need a hobby (that's kinda funny, if you think about it), and also that I need to be on my feet and move around more, so I thought I'd take up pool. Pocket billiards, that is.

Trouble is, I have no friends. Well, I do, but not at the pool hall. So if you're local to me and you'd like to shoot some pool for an hour sometime, let me know. I'll even pay for the table (it's $8 an hour and as you know, I am nothing if not a big spender.) I don't mind talking about photography.

Ice cube: I don't know...sometimes I see the world as tragic, sometimes as amusing. This week, amusing.

For instance, this is kinda funny. I thought I'd make a folksy little reference—maybe in the preamble of a blog post—about the day that the last of the ice and snow disappeared here in Wisconsin. But there's this place where I shove the snow off the deck all winter where it heaps up. It's partly under the deck's overhang, and it's north-facing so it gets no sun, and there was a ridgeline of ice there that just didn't want to melt. Day after day after day, late March, early April—still there. Upshot, last week on Tuesday evening after two days of rain I glanced over there and it looked like the ice was finally gone. But I figured I'd better be sure (get the facts straight!), so I looked more closely, and there, hiding in the grass, is this tiny little piece of crusty antediluvian ice, no bigger than maybe two ice cubes, still hangin' on. Had to laugh.

So it finally melts on Wednesday—completely—finally!—the last of the ice and snow—and then this morning, what happens? Snow on the deck. Not much, but still. Winter's hanging on like a bulldog.

Control of the time domain: I finally figured out why I don't care so much for video. The thought came to me when I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum with Ken and Chris last week. There was a big three-screen video presentation, and of course you walk in "in the middle" at "installations" like that, and I was thinking I'd just much rather be talking to Ken and Chris than standing in the dark watching some dude writhe on the carpet in slow motion. The problem with video is that it takes control of the time axis with a viselike grip...you have to go at the speed it dictates. Can't speed up, can't slow down, can't skim or skip, can't pause to reflect. Reading, you can do all those things. (Admit it, you're skimming now. I'm not offended.) The baseline requirement for video for me is that it has to at least give me more to think about than I can think about in the time it's taking up. Otherwise, I'm bored.

That's entertainment!: So then, given my general dislike of the moving-picture medium, this is kinda funny: all this past week, I've been watching...YouTube videos of 9-ball matches. The videos show everything, and I mean everything, even the pauses when the players step away from the table. And they can last for two hours or more.

...And I find them completely engrossing. Like this epic seesaw match between the late George "Ginky" San Souci (he died last year at age 39 of unknown causes) and Mike Dechaine. (For the three of you who will actually start watching this, the match doesn't start until the 7:45 mark.)

Pool as a public sport is about as under the radar as it gets—even badminton and trampolining are in the Olympics—so the videos are highly variable in production quality, and the voiceover commentary can be anything from insightful to hilariously awful. But to me, they're as fascinating to watch as golf. (I love watching golf on TV. Yes, I know most people don't.)

Rule reform: I tried watching basketball, during March Madness. Really gave it the old college try: followed the action, looked at the brackets even though I didn't make my own, read up on some of the schools and players. Now there's a boring sport. I suppose it's because I was never any good at basketball and have bad memories of it from when I played. But I also just think there are structural problems with that game. The endings are almost always draggy and anticlimactic, while the teams trade fouls and laboriously manage the clock. I'd love to see the ending of the game rethought so that it could more often be exciting and athletic. They should experiment and see what would work better. For instance, I'd start by making any foul inside the last two minutes result in two automatic points for the opposing team, with play continuing unchecked. That would get rid of the awful routine of the trailing team fouling and the opposing team going to the line multiple times in the closing seconds, which has got to be the biggest buzzkill in all of sports. The strategy is complex in basketball and the athleticism truly amazing—it must be a great game to play if you're decent or better at it—but when occasionally you do get an actual good ending to a game, it's the exception that proves the rule.

Bro: My more talented younger brother Scott was my main opponent in games of sport and skill when I was a kid. My height advantage in driveway basketball (he's five years younger) gave him a wicked outside jumpshot that served him well in high school, although tennis was really his game (and he was even better at table tennis, a.k.a. ping pong). He was more coordinated than I was, and had a more positive attitude and more competitive fire.

I played pool with Scott endlessly when we were kids, after our long, gruelling campaign to wheedle my parents into buying us a pool table was finally successful and before I went off to college. I don't recall how many years that would have been. Four or five, maybe.

But, curiously, like most people, we were only ever playing half the game. The front half of the game is pocketing the object ball, but the back half, "playing for position," i.e., putting the cue ball in position for the next shot, is arguably more important. In fact you have to think at least two or three balls ahead, and good 9-ball players are usually thinking through the whole table before they hit one shot. I find it fascinating to watch, because the professionals think it through so quickly. They can make shots faster than I can think one or two balls ahead. I feel mighty proud on those rare occasions when I can see three shots ahead before a player pockets a ball. I'm still struggling to "see the table." I know I'll get it if I keep trying, but I'm not there yet. Keeps me engaged.

Anyway, if you want a game, beware: I suck. Unless you count thirty-five years ago, I just took up the game on Wednesday, the day the ice melted, 2013.

Mike
(Thanks to Scott—not for this post, but for all those games we played as kids)

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that appear only, but not always, on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ruby: "You have absolutely read my mind and put your finger on why I hate videos. I've never been able to articulate it, but now I am quoting that paragraph to people."

Charles Lanteigne: "Too bad I'm not in the neighborhood, I love pool! My father and I play on a fairly regular basis, maybe twice a month. For us it's 8-ball. We play 'first one to win 10 games,' and we do this usually twice. Since we are a close match in skill (or lack thereof), runs often end 10-8, 10-9, so that means we play maybe 32–38 games during those three/four hour afternoons. I don't know that it's any good in terms of cardiovascular activity, but it's better than sitting at the computer all day. (I'm typically sore in one shoulder the next day!)"

John Camp: "The thing about really good art still photography is that it's really, really good.

"The thing about art video is that it usually seems really, really poor. That's because we're so used to highly professional and extremely expensive movies and television, and highly professional and extremely expensive documentaries, that make 'art videos' simply look crude. Because they are.

"My late wife was on the board of directors of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and one continuing argument they had there was modern chamber music vs. classical chamber music. The players always pushed for more modern stuff, the number-crunchers for more classical stuff, and the reason was simple—when they played a modern program, ticket sales tanked, and even a lot of the season ticket holders don't show up.

"But the reason isn't what a lot of people think it is—that people are unsophisticated about modern music. The real reason is that when you're listening to serious classical chamber music, you almost by definition are listening to a masterpiece that has survived for centuries. Most modern music is nothing like a masterpiece (and if you think about it, you'll know why—masterpieces are rare at any time, but do accumulate over the centuries.)

"I think that's also the case with photography, but video in particular. With video, our standards are so high that we don't want to see handmade stuff by a guy who got his camera three weeks ago, and is shooting pictures of himself or his friends.

"A few years ago, I was on the couch watching some movie (I no longer remember what) and there was a sequence where some people were hanging out at an L.A. food truck. As I watched, I realized that if I could have taken a half-dozen still photos of the sequence, they would have been some of the best 'street' photos I'd have taken in my life. Because the cinematography was brilliant. Color, composition, lighting, it was all there....

"A guy rolling around on the floor ain't gonna make it."

Mike replies: I think there's another explanation in addition to the accumulated-masterpiece theory. It's that the most talented people in those eras were composing classical music. Despite the existence of a few talented composers in that field now (I find Steve Reich consistently interesting, for example), it's undeniable that most people with a talent for music these days direct their attentions and energies elsewhere. There's not a lot of call for new classical compositions, not a lot of audience for it, and not a lot of money to be made doing it. So it doesn't attact the driven, ambitious, talented people. So the work isn't typically especially compelling or popular. QED.

P.S. Like you, I'm not infrequently amazed at the talent of cinematographers.

mark: "Efren ('The Magician') Reyes looks like he carries a bit of a paunch. You might want to think about a hobby that involves some exercise. Or at least an activity whose most famous participant has a nickname other than 'Fats.'

JohnMFlores: "Great to see a photo of Efren 'Bata' Reyes. He's a national hero where I come from. As a kid he used to rack the balls at the local pool hall by day and then practice whenever he could. He'd sleep on the tables at night, or so I heard. I was playing pool in Manila with cousins when another legend, Francisco Bustamante, walks in and starts playing at the next table. Next thing we know, Bata's there, and under the klieg lights of greatness my game when from passable to piss-poor.

"I totally understand the watching pool on YouTube. Months ago I spent hours watching snooker maestro Ronnie O'Sullivan. Here's one where he alternates between shooting righty and lefty. Smashing!"

carlweese: "My grandfather, John Francis (Jack) Duggan, was born in Ireland, came with his parents to Canada, then sneaked into the U.S. on a bicycle at the age of 14. At 28, he was a vice president of Gimbel Brothers, the department store giant in New York. One reason was that he could join the New York Athletic club (the other executives could not in that era, because they were Jews) and make the business connections denied to the others. He also became the billiards champion of the club. I have a bunch of sterling silver hip flasks that were the awards for yearly championships (this was during prohibition of course, which makes it more delicious). My father told me that shooting pool with his father-in- law was the most frustrating thing in the world. Jack would let you break, you might sink a ball or two, then he'd clear seven or eight tables in a row. Talk about planning the whole table at once from the result of the break....

"He died when I was only five, and no longer lived in a place that could house a pool table, so I never learned the game from him."

Sean: "The pool hall above local arcade held a much bigger draw to me than school ever did. I could not hold a pen right, but the things I could do with a cue. I never liked snooker that much. My wag officer (truant officer) promised me that if I stayed in school every day for six weeks, he'd take me for a game of snooker. It was a big ask, but I managed it, he was true to his word. The table was too big to me; I didn't play well. We went back to our cat and mouse relationship soon after."

JTW: "The snow/ice has (almost) gone from under your deck? We (Western Canada) are having the worst spring (or lack of) in recent memory. There is still snow everywhere, and in a month that last year posted highs in the double digits (celsius, of course) this year we've hardly broken 0° (32°F to you).

"I don't watch basketball either. Never have. I have reached the conclusion that the sports biggest problem is the size of the court. When the game was first 'invented,' in a YMCA in Canada, the players would have been, what, 5' 8" on average? Six feet would have been big. Now, it's played by guys who can go down the court in three strides, so the whole nature of the game is different."

Mike replies: If I get another life, I am going to make a billion dollars by starting an alternative basketball league called "The Six-Foot League." No players over 6', no play above the rim allowed, and games will be best three-out-of-five eight-minute "sets." (Because really, if it's a blowout, who needs to see more than 24 minutes? If it's close, you get to see the full 40 minutes.) Fouls will renew for each set so the best players won't have to sit out at the end of games, and of course my pet ideas to make the final minutes more exciting will all be implemented....

The first step would be to hire 12 or 15 guys to play a bunch of games with different rules, so we could research what works best. Maybe I should write a letter to Mark Cuban. Yeah, that would be a good use of my time. :-D

Open Mike: On Wisconsin

  Wisconsin in red; Lake Michigan, the fifth-largest lake in the world and the only one of the Great Lakes entirely within the borders of the U.S., in blue.

I live in Wisconsin. Actually I've lived here twice, from the ages of seven to 18 and from the year 2000 until now. Operating under the assumption that many of you have never heard of Wisconsin and many more of you know very little about it, here are a few known and a few lesser-known facts about my home State:

• Wisconsin either is or used to be the most Germanic State in the Union. So much so that German was the official language of the Milwaukee public schools all the way until 1922. The two World Wars were body-blows to frank and open expressions of German pride (I think I'm using the words of John Gurda, local historian nonpareil), but to this day between a third and half of all Wisconsin residents claim predominantly German ethnic roots. (I'm Scottish and English myself, born in Indianapolis, Indiana.)

• Wisconsin has more professional water-skiing teams than all the rest of the States combined. (This was a new one on me.) Sounds odd, but then, the State is pretty soggy—we have 7,446 streams and rivers and 15,074 lakes, and the State's largest tourist attraction, the Dells (where most of those water-skiing teams hang out), is a natural water park, now mixed in with lots of artificial ones. (I can't swim.)

• Door County—the skinny peninsula that sticks out into Lake Michigan—has more shoreline, and more parks, than any other county in the United States. (Never been there, strangely enough.)

• We're also home to the "Bong Recreation Area" (not kidding), which inspires amazed vistors with certain, ah, enthusiasms to stop and have their pictures taken next to the sign.

• Wisconsin is the nation's largest producer of milk. (By the bye, You might think you're being healthy by drinking milk with reduced fat, but what you might not know is that you're probably not getting away with it. Cheese made from the milkfat that's removed from skim milk and 1% or 2% milk is routinely added to other types of processed foods to increase fat content and improve what's called "mouthfeel." In many cases this is done "invisibly," i.e., in products you wouldn't necessarily suspect contain cheese fat.)

• If you're American, you probably already knew that Wisconsin is "The Dairy State"; but you might not know that we're also a leading producer of high-end pool cues...for reasons nobody seems to be able to explain. We just are. Check out J. Pechaur, Schmelke, Viking, Schon, Jacoby and Jackson for starters. (That's the butt of a $1,300 custom McDermott [no, it's not mine!] at left. Here's a link to a McDermott factory tour video.) (My ambition in life is to have a pool table. And there is still time.)

• We host the World's largest annual music festival, Summerfest. (Went once, saw the BeeGees, never been back. Fests in general are not my thing, personally. Car shows excepted.)

• We're the country's leading producer of ginseng. (Don't ask me.)

• There are roughly as many people in the Chicago metrolitan area as in all of Wisconsin. Also, we have half the land area of Germany, but only 1/13th as many people...in case there are any Germans still thinking of emigrating.

• On the day of the famous Great Chicago Fire there was a worse fire in Wisconsin, in and all around a small lumber-producing town called Peshtigo. Wikipedia quotes the book Firestorm at Peshtigo: "...a wall of flame, a mile high, five miles (8 km) wide, traveling 90 to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), hotter than a crematorium, turning sand into glass." It consumed 1,800 square miles, and obliterated so many people (estimates range from 1,200 to 2,500) that there remained no record of many who died because everyone who knew them also died and all the church and government records that once mentioned them also burned up. News of the Peshtigo fire didn't get out for days because all means of communication were destroyed. There's a museum.

• Very few celebrities come from Wisconsin. Lots of deer do, though. Magician and escape artist Harry Houdini, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur are about it (for the celebrities, not the deer). (The guy who invented the electric guitar was born—and is buried—in the town where I live. We think that counts for something...but then, like I say, very few celebrities come from Wisconsin.)

• There are 11 officially recognized American Indian tribes in Wisconsin, including the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Ho-chunk (Winnebago), Menominee, and Potawatami.

• The name "Wisconsin" is an Ojibwe word—an Anglicanization of their name for what we now know as the Wisconsin River. Western Wisconsin is the ancestral home of the Dakota tribe (which is the same as Lakota and Nakota), for some Americans and many foreigners considered the quintessential American plains Indian tribe under their "other" name, "Sioux"—which is also an Ojibwe word. (It means "little snakes," a derogatory term from when the tribes were enemies.)

• People from Wisconsin are called "Badgers" because of early mineworkers who would live in the mouths of mines or in shallow caves dug into hillsides...like badgers, which live in holes. We're also called "Cheeseheads" because of the State's dairy industry. (My only encounter with a badger was when a Bayside policeman had to come shoot a wounded one that a neighbor's dog had done battle with when I was a boy.)

• You've most likely heard of the local motorcyle company. (Thanks to Steve Jacob for the suggestion to add this. —Ed.)

• Wisconsin has a strong progressive, radical, and liberal heritage, stemming mainly from the large numbers of politically radical (mainly German) refugees that came here in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe. The last Socialist mayor of any major American city was Frank P. Zeidler, Mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960. The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin, in Ripon, in 1854.

• Wisconsin's Green Bay Packers, indisputably the best team in the entire National Football League now, in history, and forevermore*, are the only NFL team that have no individual owner or ownership family. The team is a non-profit owned by the people of the City of Green Bay, and by stockholders (who are, according to strict bylaws that prevent the stock from being traded, basically just donors to the team. I have a stock certificate frame in my front hall. Hey, when in Rome...). Green Bay is the oldest city in the State.

• Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, is "the troll capital of the world." (And here you thought it was the Dpreview forums.) All over the town there are statues of trolls carved from sections of tree trunks, and things named after trolls. (I'd say "beat that," but then, you probably can....)

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that appear only, but not always, on Sundays. The title of this post, "On Wisconsin," is the name of the fight song of the University of Wisconsin Badgers and also our official State song. The name came from a battle cry used at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in the Civil War by Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas. "On Wisconsin" was believed by John Philip Sousa to be the best of the college fight songs, and some version of it (with different lyrics of course) is allegedly used by other schools numbering in the thousands.

I'm aware that all this sounds a little like I'm making it all up, but, again, not kidding.

*Certain recalcitrant individuals might possibly dispute this appraisal. Including my friend Cynthia, a devout Bears fan who would sooner stick pins in her eyes than root for the Packers. She lives here, but, because of her football loyalties, we have to consider her a guest. (She is currently in mourning over Brian Erlacher, is anguished that she never got to see him play in a Bears uniform in person, and has resolved to travel to see him play wherever he ends up playing next year.)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Scott: "It's Urlacher."

Mike replies: Maybe, but I'm pretty sure Cynthia would not be quite as annoyed with me if I spelled it that way.

Jock Elliott: "Wisconsin has awesome ice cream, about a zillion percent butterfat. It absolutely will stop your heart, but you get to die happy. (When we lived in Ohio, my mom got her master's degree at Madison. It was worth the trip up there to get a double-scoop cone.)"

Mike replies: As I've mentioned before, our local fast-food chain, based in Prairie du Sac, goes by the motto, "Home of the Butterburger." A distinctly Wisconsin touch.

Marshall Richter (partial comment): "Hopefully I am not disappointing you too much, but I'm willing to bet that 'Bong Recreation Area' is named after Dick Bong, a Wisconsin native and one of the leading American fighter aces of WWII. He flew the P-38 Lightning in the Pacific Theater. I know this because I grew up in Dousman, Waukesha County."

Mike replies: Spoilsport.

(You're right.)

Cousin Jack: "Coming from Cornwall, UK, I think Mineral Point is worth a mention. The destination of many migrant miners from my home town—and, I believe, some of my family. I have never visited, but my father did when at a trade show in Chicago some years ago. I am delighted that I might be related to badgers...."

Sid: "Harry Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary and came to Appleton, Wisconsin when he was four years old, but always said that he was born in Wisconsin. In addition to cheese and fishboil in Dorr County, you can buy handmade shoes and boots in Berlin, Wisconsin, which was named after a certain Prussian city. As a Chicagoan long resident in the mid-South, I miss the Midwest, the heart of America."

Mike replies: There goes another of our celebrities...cut it out, we don't have any to spare.

Dan in Pleasant Prairie: "Not many celebrities? How about Les Paul, Liberace, Pee Wee King (wrote 'The Tennesee Waltz'), and Orson Wells? I know there are more but a beer is calling and I have some cheese to put away."

Mike replies: Well, there is Pee-Wee King, yes.

Jeff: "Regarding its progressive heritage, Wisconsin ushered in the first worker's compensation (the current terminology) and unemployment compensation laws in the country. It's also the place I experienced the coldest windchill factor in my history...63 below zero. I moved back east soon after."

Steve: "Evan Clarke, owner of Schon Custom Cues, is also a great large format photographer. Unfortunately he doesn't have any of his work online that I know of, but he regularly shows up at the Midwest Large Format Asylum's outings with prints. He's also always willing to help someone else out."

Mike replies: Good to know! Could someone on the MLFA tell him he was mentioned here?

D B: "Georgia O'Keeffe was Wisconsin born and raised."

Open Mike: Editions

Here's a list of the two kinds of people in the world: 

1. People who like lists
2. People who don't

As a member of the first group, I'm continuing to putter away on my grand list project, my bite-off-almost-more-than-you-can-chew book recommendations list.

The list is now called "266 Books by Genre." The number keeps changing!

The list started when my son decided at age ten or 11 that he didn't like to read. As an inveterate reader and bibliophile, this consternated me deeply—how do you learn about the world if you don't read? Books are where you find most of what humans know, and have learned, and have thought; they are where, mostly, the great glorious life of the mind resides.

Zander yesterday. (And an example of the Zeiss 24mm Sonnar
wide open at ƒ/1.8, too.)

So, taking a cue from our epic read-aloud traversal of the Harry Potter series when my fine lad was in single digits, I got a bright idea. I figured I'd just pick a bunch of the best books I know for finding out about the world, and read them aloud to him. Who says you can only read aloud to little kids? I was influenced by my off-the-grid friends Jim and Becky, who continued to read aloud to their daughter Lillian until well after the time when she could just as easily read aloud to them. (Their family might still read aloud together when she's home from college, I don't know.) 

Jim and I were in the same 5th grade class at Bayside Elementary School, where we "hated" our teacher, a certain Mrs. Memmel. (She had firm favorites, and fairness was not a big point with her). But nemesis Mrs. Memmel did me one big solid, I think. For an hour a day she would read aloud to the class and have us follow along in our own books. It was there I heard how all the punctuation marks sounded. I've been visual since birth, and all my life had loved books for pictures; but fifth grade was when books really came alive for me—when type began to speak.

My project of reading aloud to Zander didn't last very long...about three chapters into an ornate translation of The Three Musketeers, to be precise. That is one difficult book to read aloud, and neither one of us were enjoying it much. In any event he had already discovered video games, then, as now, his favorite pastime. My reading put him to sleep, but I wasn't sure how much he was getting out of it. It seemed tiresome to me too. We stopped.

But I'd already succumbed to the danger ahead: I had started thinking about which books would be worth reading aloud to him...and by extension which books would be worth reading if you could only read a few...

Open Mike: Sleep, Baby

It's curious that right after I underwent sleep testing, The New Yorker would have an article about it. I hope you can see the whole article at the link; it appears to be up on the open Web, but I'm a subscriber so I don't know what kind of special privileges are buried in my computer's protocols.

The article is by Elizabeth Kolbert, who I sometimes forget is a generalist reporter/writer and not just a brilliant writer about climate change. It contains a line that's as close to blatant humor as you'll find in David Remnick's incarnation of the magazine (humor being not Remnick's strong suit): "Of the many ways that things can go wrong in bed," Kolbert writes, deadpanning, "sleep troubles are probably the most prevalent."

The article doesn't end up delving into the subject in Kolbert's customary depth, but I'll quote a passage in case you can't access the whole article yourself:

Each of us has an internal clock, or, to use Roenneberg’s term, a 'chronotype.' Either we’re inclined to go to bed early and wake up at dawn, in which case we’re 'larks,' or we like to stay up late and get up later, which makes us 'owls.' (One’s chronotype seems to be largely inherited, although Roenneberg notes, not altogether helpfully, that the 'genetics are complex.') During the week, everyone is expected to get to the office more or less at the same time—let's say 9 A.M. This suits larks just fine. Owls know they ought to go to bed at a reasonable time, but they can't—they're owls. So they end up having to get up one, two, or, in extreme cases, three hours earlier than their internal clock would dictate. This is what Roenneberg refers to as 'social jet lag'—each workday, owls fall asleep in one time zone and, in effect, wake up in another. By the time the week is over, they’re exhausted. They 'fly back' to their internal time zone on weekends and sleep in on Saturday and Sunday. Then, on Monday, they start the process all over again.

For larks, the problem is reversed. Social life is arranged so that it's hard to have one unless you stay out late on Friday and Saturday nights. But, even when larks have partied till 3 a.m., they can't sleep in the following day—they're larks. So they stagger through until Monday, when they can finally get some rest.

This reminds me of one of the better progressive ideas I've read about. I know almost nothing about it (but then, I'm not writing in The New Yorker).

The idea is to have two workdays, running simultaneously. One would be a conventional, standard day that would begin at 8 a.m., break for lunch at noon, and conclude at 5 p.m. The "other" day would begin at 11 a.m., break for lunch at 3 p.m., and conclude at 8 p.m.

Not only would it accommodate "larks" and "owls" without discrimination, which would be accomplishment enough (as a longtime owl, I've never adjusted to the world's judgementally larkish schedule very well), but there would be all kinds of social and business advantages: restaurants could spread lunch and dinner hours over a longer period of time, schools and other institutions would be able to utilize their physical plants for more of the day, and the usage pressure on roads and other infrastructure would be relaxed. Assuming you live in a city that still has a defined "rush hour" (I do know that in some cities, rush hour begins at 6 a.m. and doesn't end until 9 p.m.), the periods of heaviest traffic would be split in two and everyone would get where they're going faster.

I would shorten the amount of time that "first shift" and "second shift" workers would have to do business with each other, but that overlap would still exist. And each "shift" would have hours in its day when only half of the rest of the world was working, which resumably would increase peace and quiet and reduce distractions, possibly increasing productivity.

Importantly, it would mean that high school students could start and end their days later. Human teenagers are programmed to be owls as part of nature's mating game, and forcing them to start their days at 8 a.m. or even earlier is simply a mild form of torture that impairs their academic performance. Elizabeth's article says, "A school district in Minnesota that switched to a later schedule found that the average S.A.T. scores for the top ten per cent of the class rose by more than two hundred points, a result that the head of the College Board called 'truly flabbergasting.'" But then she goes on to point out that "teachers and school administrators generally resist the change, preferring to believe that the problem is insoluble."

There are a few problems with the double-day idea, too. For instance, what if your day starts at 11 but your toddler's starts at 8? But parents of young children have to get dragged into the lark cohort anyway, so not much would really be changing there. And who knows? If society became normalized to two workdays, maybe larks could socialize earlier on weekends, and get to bed on time.

No later than
The problems don't really matter, though, because, like most good ideas, this one will never be implemented. We do things not because they make sense, but because we have always done them. Why is the entire world on a lark's schedule, when only some 25% of us are natural larks? Farmers, believe it or not. Farmers have to start their days bitterly early, when the proverbial cock crows. The rest of society went along with this schedule, back in the days when society was overwhelmingly agrarian and farmers were economically the most important players in most communities. And now that farmers amount to less than 1% of the population? Nothing's changed. And nothing ever will.

And before I leave the subject of sleep (like Elizabeth Kolbert, I'm going to content myself with a glancing pass at the subject that doesn't pretend to be thorough), I'll pass along something my doctor told me. He said the single, overriding factor in good "sleep hygiene" and the way you regulate your body's internal schedule is to set a deadline time for every morning, past which you will never sleep in. It doesn't matter when this is, but he said that the time you start your day, more than anything else, regulates the rest of the day; for everything else, the body and brain will adjust. All you have to do is to set that "latest awakening" time and never sleep past it.

For what that's worth.

I had a pretty good night's sleep last night, which is a good thing. It means I'll probably get some work done today.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic essays that appear on some Sundays on TOP.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
I just got this—Freud's best book, in my opinion, and the only one of his books worth reading now for the layperson non-specialist. This illustrated edition is delightful. And you might be able to find it for just a few bucks at your local chain bookstore...it has recently been on closeout.

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Featured Comments from:

Phil: "That's an interesting notion—about the Larks and the Owls—and one I guess we're all familiar with on some level. Here's what's odd with me: I used to be a dyed-in-the-wool Owl, and getting up before 8 a.m. on any morning, no matter when I went to bed, was always a struggle. And it still is when I'm working my 'day job,' which I do only part of the year.

"When I'm off work and at home though, I am up every morning, pretty much seven days a week, at 4 a.m. The hours between 4 and 9 a.m. are spent in my darkroom. Whether I'm actually printing, processing, or doing anything at all productive makes no difference, I am up and at 'em and in there every morning. And this for like the last the or four years now.

"As it turns out, this particular time slot was the only one available where there were zero wifely demands or other domestic obligations or interruptions, and I am able to completely focus on my 'work.' I don't even need an alarm clock anymore, I'm wide awake and outta bed at 3:50 every morning and it doesn't matter if I went to bed at 9 or midnight.

"However genetically predisposed I am (or was) to the old Owl's 'chronotype,' my photography habit seems to have converted me to the Lark's. At least when I'm not working."

Mike replies: According to the lastest research when I was in college—which is not the latest research any more, n.b.—sleep is trainable. You can be trained to adapt to a longer or shorter day, longer or shorter nights, or (within limits) different schedules. The one thing people really do not do well is with constantly shifting schedules; people need regularity in order to stand a chance of adapting. And the influences appear to need to be exogenous, i.e., imposed on you from outside. Note that I am not an expert.

Paul Amyes: "I worked for a while at a place that had flexi-time. Core hours were 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. but when you started and finished were up to you. It was brilliant. I'd get in at 6 and could get heaps done without the phone ringing. You could also accrue extra hours which you could carry forward and take off so in effect if you could manage things right you could tack this onto your annual leave."

Open Mike: The Meaning of BMW

By Mike Johnston

I learned to drive stick shift in a BMW...on a test drive.

In high school I read car magazines obsessively in study hall, where I encountered David E. Davis's famous review of the BMW 2002, an article that helped put the German carmaker on the map*. Much later I actually got to visit the legendary editor at his home, to inspect a Mexican view camera he had on display in his living room; but that's another story.

Open Mike: Real Stories

I was spouting off yesterday, and told a friend that I think The Wire: The Complete Series is the Great American Novel, come round at last.

He replied, "So, you highly recommend The Wire?" The problem is, he's a retired Chief of Police. I do highly recommend The Wire (even though I'm only midway through Season 4). But do I highly recommend it to a former policeman? I wouldn't recommend a medical show to a doctor. It seems like great fiction to me—in fact it might be the greatest work of art I know of in the entire moving picture medium, movies or TV. But then, I don't know the reality.

It's a thorny issue. Regardless of what you think about her politics (or her publication), you ought to read Maureen Dowd in the New York Times today.

She rather gently goes after "filmmakers who make up facts in stories about real people to add 'drama,' rather than just writing the real facts better."

I've always hated most "true story" movies for this reason. I don't trust 'em. There's a good reason for that: they're not trustworthy, generally. It's not just Hollywood mannerism, the oppressiveness of convention, the tyranny of special effects: the more you know about a subject, the less a movie version will suffice. What's tragic is that the corollary is also true: the less you know about a subject, the more likely you are to accept the debased, tarted-up movie versions as accurate.

Bad data always corrupts. "Historical movies that aren't" do more harm than anybody knows. Most people—me probably included, although I'm more wary than most—know a whole lot about everything that just plain isn't true, thanks to the incredibly low standards of factual accuracy we've come to accept as normal in movies.

No average American knows one damn true thing about the American Wild West, for one thing. At this point it's pure mythos, pure lore, and digging down to the truth would require a far more extensive archaeology than all but a tiny handful of dedicated scholars could ever give it.

I'm not above it. (Neither are you.) I admit, I accept movies from Bonnie and Clyde to The King's Speech as being "accurate enough." I suspend critical skepticism and go with the stories. I don't know any better.

One of the surprises of parenthood for me is that my son isn't a reader. He had some perceptual difficulties early in his education and his elementary school teachers adjusted too little, too late. By the time he hit high school, he was reading well above grade level, but the damage was done: he'd been forced to read aloud to the class when he couldn't, and suffered the slings and arrows of juvenile teasing because of it. He now says he "hates reading." I've tried to explain to him that books are how human pass along knowledge, and he retorted, "why read a book when I can get the same story in two hours?"

That is, from a movie. Movies aren't supposed to be for learning about life, history, culture, facts, truth. Except, that's what people do.

It's always amazed me that we, as humans, as a culture, will literally spend hundreds of millions of dollars spinning pure fantasies as entertainment, but documentary programs are generally limited to a few props and an actor or two. I'd like it better if it were the opposite. We have this wonderful new medium—less than a hundred years old—and we routinely squander it on tripe, rather than using to inform people about the real world and what we actually do know about history, as a people, as a culture. (I've seen some very good movies, don't get me wrong.)

I'm not against works of imagination, and those who like blue creatures can go watch them. (My son likes zombie movies. I enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, which he made me watch. I did not mistake it for truth-telling.) But the pendulum has swung way too far. A series like The Wire, which deliberately rejects the heavily formulaic high mannerism of its genre and attempts real novelistic truth-telling on an almost Dostoevskian scale, goes very much against the current grain.

An even newer medium, animation, is being similarly wasted. I'd love to see a beautifully animated King Lear, or the real story of the 300—it's dramatic enough. But we get talking cars, talking fish, the usual. Some of them even have the depth of a '60s Bugs Bunny cartoon. (I've seen some very good animated films, don't get me wrong.)

The whole point of fiction is that it allows us to get closer to truths that can't be told any other way. Fantasy can be entertaining, but the greatest fiction of all usually has elusive reality underneath it. Movies or TV that purport to tell reality shouldn't take liberties. Not without protest and censure.

We can't always tell the truth when we claim to. But we should at least try.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of casual off-topic essays that sometimes appears on TOP on Sundays.

For further reading

ADDENDUM: More reading. Another article along similar lines, by Barry Lando—it's called "Zero Dark Thirty: Hijacking History." A quote:

That point was driven home by a study done in 2009 by Andrew Butler, now at Duke, but then at the Department of Psychology of the Washington University of Saint Louis.

His researchers gave a group of about fifty students an accurate written account of an historical event to read. They also showed them an excerpt from a feature film about that same event, an excerpt that wrongly and blatantly contradicted the central fact of the printed text.

When they were later tested, 50% of the students recalled the misinformation portrayed in the film as being correct.

(Thanks to Carl for this.)

CORRECTION: A bad example was removed from this post because it was wrong.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

frank: "For what it's worth, I can confidently say that what is depicted in The Wire is not HBO hyperbole. I worked in those neighborhoods back in the early '90s and saw firsthand the mayhem, trauma, despair, alienation, brutalization and hopelessness embedded in those neighborhoods. And of course none of that has substantively changed, at least as reported to me by colleague familiar with those neighborhoods.

"The homicide rates are 'waxed figures,' fluctuating as a function of political pressure. The powers who are politically in place look to 'feel good legislation' whose purpose is to convince the community that 'we are taking seriously these problems,' yet, of course, nothing changes. The real jobs are illegal, drug-trade related, as is the acquisition of the weapons needed to keep the various trade factions in positions of power and segmented into their respective 'turf.' Good luck on the efficacy of legislation relative to eliminating this source of homicide. And no self-respecting 15-year-old is gonna give up $100 a trip muling in favor of a minimum-wage job at Mickey Dee's. Ain't gonna happen.

"I'm about to begin watching the entire series again, just so I can see how far it is we haven't come."

Rob: "My daughter-in-law has a Ph.D. in sociology and teaches at the university level. She loves The Wire on many levels, but especially for how it portrays the drug culture and its many social and political ramifications. She has also told me that there is a course at Harvard dedicated to exploring The Wire. So I don't know if the program is good enough for a police chief, but it certainly is good enough for scholars in the fields of sociology and criminology.

"By the way, as great as The Wire may be, nothing can match Breaking Bad."

Mike replies: I would take that course. Seriously.

Will: "When I was working in the video section of one of the country's biggest independent record stores, we had a saying: 'There are two kinds of people in the world; people who think that The Wire is the best show in the history of television, and people who have never seen The Wire.'

"I've watched it four times, and am due for a fifth. I have so much to share, but I can limit it to these two fun facts: 1.) The character of 'The Deacon' (who first appears to advise Bunny in the Hamsterdam storyline) is played by the real-life inspiration for Avon Barksdale. 2.) Writer Richard Price joined the show in season three, and wrote a tiny role for his daughter into a season three episode. She reappears in equally small roles in two more Price-written episodes, one each in season 4 and 5. She may have 60 seconds total screen time on the show, but her story is a complete one, with a beginning, middle, and end, and is as poignant as many on the show.

"When I worked at that record store, we had many, many celebrity customers. The only one that actually made me nervously starstruck, though, was Andre Royo, the actor who plays Bubbles."

Open Mike: Cheap Criticism

Clean lines, graceful proportions, and restraint.

After having written about the new Corvette the other day, I wanted to take a different tack...and be positive. If the Corvette isn't a particularly good-looking car, what is? Well, here's what I think is the best-looking car you can buy new in the world today.

It's the Maserati GranTurismo, a front-engined four-seat coupe with an eight-cylinder Ferrari engine. Introduced in 2007, it was designed by—or its design team was led by, as the case may be—Jason Castriota, an American working for Pininfarina of Cambiano, Italy. (This picture is a frame grab from Ignition episode 39; the ones up top and below are from the Maserati website.)

To me this car is a paragon of proportion, restraint, and gracefulness, combined with just the right amount of marque specificity and model distinctiveness. The long nose and big radiator scoop give it purpose without looking too face-like, and the headlights resist the current fashion of spidering all over the car in weird tendrils (cf. the current 458 Italia). The front overhang is just enough to suggest aggressiveness without cartoonish excess. To me it's just angular enough to be fashionable, but without overdoing it; and just curvaceous enough to be sculptural, without becoming feminine. And it has just the right amount of detailing and bling. (Love the trident. I've always had a soft spot for Maseratis.) Various Ferraris and Aston-Martins might live in the same neighborhoods, but to me this is still the best-looking car that can be bought new.

Of course, my appreciation is only aesthetic...I don't buy superdupercars, affordable or otherwise. And nobody cares about my opinion of what cars look like.

So why bring all this up?

It's just that...well, a little story. I had a girlfriend once a long time ago named Nell Leclair, who was an impressive and interesting person. She was a photographer and a freelance graphic artist, and had dealt with some very severe problems—mainly with depression—in inventive and resourceful ways. Among other things, she taught me one thing that I've remembered from time to time in the decades since I knew her.

We were talking about the habit of being critical—discussing a person we both knew who was caustically critical (and often entertainingly insulting) about everything. She said she didn't quite approve of that attitude, because it was so safe.

I was surprised by that word, and asked her what she meant, and she said—more or less—that hating or criticizing everything was safe because it meant you don't have to take a stand. Liking something means you are opening yourself up; if nothing is good enough for you it's another way of saying you're superior to everything. Very smug, very snug. Being insulting and critical, admittedy a position of attack when face-to-face, is psychologically actually a position of retreat.

It's more difficult to be positive—to be clear about why something is good—than it is to be negative. Negative criticism is easy. Positive criticism is hard.

I'm not averse to going negative from time to time. But I do get to feeling a little queasy sometimes when I get into the snarky doldrums—you know, that mood where you're just sort of dissing and dismissing this and that. Hundreds of very talented people put in thousands of hours and, no doubt, a steep payment in blood, sweat and tears to create the new Corvette, and then legions of guys like me come along—in my case, without any particular expertise, without a consuming enthusiasm for cars, even—and lazily slag away.

Well. I have the right. I see the world aesthetically, and I have always held that any of us should reserve the right to respond to aesthetic experiences as if the encounter were meaningful to us. How else do you stand a chance to get what's to be gotten out of art, for one thing? Staying open, having your own taste and your own opinions, resisting the dictates of official expertise, inviting growth and personal change—it's a dynamic state, and it's difficult to maintain sometimes.

But just being negative is too easy. Not for nothing is it often called "cheap."

That's all.

Okay, slag away. But fair's fair: if you diss my pick, what's yours?

Mike

P.S. When good CGI goes bad:

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts that appear only, but not always, on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A DVD of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

R. Edelman: "If you like the outside of the Maserati GranTurismo, you would love the interior. I had an opportunity a few years ago to do a close inspection of one at the San Francisco Auto Show. Sitting inside the Maserati means being surrounded by the comfort and luxury provided by the leather and tasteful design that can only come from Italy. As driving is experienced from the inside of the car, there is no element of design that is more important than the interior. Combine desirable exterior and interior designs with performance and you have a modern day classic. How's that for being positive?"

Professor Batty: "With the three portholes on the side and the oval grille I actually thought the Maserati was a Buick concept car!"

Mike replies: You mean like all BMWs now look like Pontiacs?

Bill Hamilton: "Just got the Tesla Model S and the standing joke among 'S' owners is you need a bumper sticker that reads 'This is not a Maserati.'"

Bárbara: "I am usually just a silent reader of your blog, which I enjoy, thank you! Regarding your latest post about the Maserati, I liked it, although, I admit, I don't think too much about luxury cars being a monetarily poor soul, but, I really enjoyed the sage advice from your ex-girlfriend that you shared. Thanks for thinking of it again and sharing it here. Very poignant, indeed, and very good to remember, as you have, from time to time! I am grateful!"

Open Mike: Snarky Puppy!

Michael Wollny and Heinz Sauer. Photo courtesy ACT / Grosse Geldermann

Best Jazz Records of 2012

• Not Getting Behind is the New Getting Ahead, Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola. Charlie Hunter Music. You know you're in for some fun with tracks titled "There Used to Be a Nightclub There" and "Those Desks Aren't Going to Clean Themselves." Track to sample: "Assessing the Assessors, an Assessor's Assessment."

• Four MFs Playin' Tunes, Branford Marsalis Quartet. Marsalis Music. Anyone who can quit a gig as juicy as the bandleader on "The Tonight Show" is perpetually all right with me. Branford Marsalis plays in the same straight-up boppish tradition as his more famous bro Wynton, but he's not as doctrinaire about it. Track to sample: "Teo."

• Mischief and Mayhem, Jenny Scheinman. If you're getting the idea that I like a bit o' rhythm in my modden jazz, you've got that right. Violinist Jenny is a collaborator of Bill Frisell and Ani DiFranco among others and is joined here by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. Track to sample: "Ali Farka Touche."

Jenny Scheinman. Photo by Michael Wilson.

• Bright Light in Winter, Jeff Parker Trio. Delmark Records. One for guitar heads. Clean and spare, like, well, bright light in winter. Somethingelsereviews says "Parker's pillowy soft guitar tone permeates the record and his steady-tempered jazzy lines never go past 4 on the adrenaline knob," not exactly what you'd expect on the first record in seven years from this veteran of the Chicago Underground Orchestra and Tortoise. A friendly, flowing record. Track to sample: "Mainz."

• Wasted & Wanted, Michael Wollny's [em]. ACT. From Germany, with love. Wollny is a rising European star with a darkish ethos who claims inspiration from literature, films and painting as well as from music. Wasted & Wanted bends genres but without making a big thing out of it. Track to sample: "Metall."

• Live at Kitano, Frank Kimbrough Trio. A classic piano trio. Fred Kaplan wrote that this lush recording of quiet jazz "is for late nights and close listening," and so it is. Track to sample: "Single Petal of a Rose."

• Black Radio, Robert Glasper. Blue Note has come a long way, baby...this might be too "crossover" for some tastes, with flavorings of everything from rap to the Isley Brothers. Glasper, his guests, and the Experiment Band create a fascinating soundworld that sounds like cities late at night, from the streets to the bars to the penthouses. Featuring Erika Badu and Lalah Hathaway (and Mos Def, as yasiin bey). And covers of Sade and Nirvana. You can argue that it's not jazz, but it's lovely. Track to sample: "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

• Bending Bridges, Mary Halvorson Quintet. I got a little obsessed with Mary Halvorson's Dragon's Head after my friend Bob Burnett turned me on to it. Gassy and noisy on first listens, its originality and quirky, spiky odd turns begin to delight deeply on repeat visits. I still don't know if I like Mary Halvorson, but I listen to her a lot. Track to sample: "The Periphery of Scandal."

•     •     •

Honorable mentions: Alexander Hawkins Ensemble, All There, Ever Out; Vijay Iyer Trio, Accelerando (this makes everybody's best of 2012 lists, better not leave it off mine); Lee Ritenour, Rhythm Sessions (with plenitudinous guest stars). Best Band name: Snarky Puppy. Yes, Snarky Puppy. Best album concept: The Atheist Gospel Trombone album (Jacob Garchik). I'm still waiting for the Acid Jazz Trip-Hop Accordion album, but maybe next year.

Best historical reissue: Thelonious Monk, Complete Albums Collection. The box set features all six of Thelonious Monk's Columbia album with Charlie Rouse: Monk's Dream (1962), Criss Cross (1962), It's Monk's Time (1964), Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1966) and Underground (1967). (Criss Cross and Straight, No Chaser are among my favorites). No to-do is made about the remastering, but it's remarkable—the sound quality is stellar, the best ever. For this set you want to buy the physical CDs, since the box features the nifty booklet with lots of archive photos. Being a super-duper screaming great deal ($4.85 per CD, the box for less than $30) doesn't hurt anything, either.

I'm not an expert on jazz by any stretch, especially contemporary jazz, so I'm more than open to being corrected....

Mike

"Open Mike," frequently wandering off topic, scats past on Sundays here at TOP.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dana: "...Hey Mike...I am going to narrow this down a bit and give you my jazz single of the year: Ahmad Jamal's 'Blue Moon.' At 81 years old this amazing musician produces and plays an absolute masterpiece. Listen once and you will be hooked."

Howard French: "This is one of my favorite features on this site, and I love the modesty of spirit reflected in the concluding comment: 'I'm no expert on Jazz...' I've been listening intently to the music all my life, and think you've got a first class sensibility and exquisite taste. Many of the past recommendations, mostly involving older music (Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Archie Shepp etc., etc.) have been truly first rate. Now to Amazon to check some of this stuff out."

Mike replies: Thanks Howard. Posting this as a featured comment might contradict your point about my modesty, but since only about 38 readers have read this post down this far....[g]

Jamie Pillers: "Wha...?? Mike, what were you thinking? Christmas is gone, man. Now I have to put these on my wish list for next year!!"

Mike replies: Naw, music is more like food...a consumable necessary for survival. For all year 'round, not just for special occasions.

Dave: "Thanks for the ideas. I always want to get more into jazz but don't know where to start—just added Jazz 101 to my amazon shopping cart. Also, I added some of your recommended albums to my Spotify playlist. For those of you that don't know about Spotify this is the perfect opportunity to try out their service. Most of these albums are available on Spotify. It's free on your computer."

Mike replies: These aren't horribly "out there" or avant-garde as new jazz goes, but they're probably not the place to start for people who just want to "get more into jazz." For that, I'd recommend my Jazz Starter Kit. But by all means explore on Spotify as you like.

Open Mike

 Why I'm NOT in Favor of Gun Control

Regular readers might know that one of my mantras is "editors needed everywhere." It's something I say when I run across a hilarious ambiguity or a howler of a typo.

A truly tragic case where an editor was sorely needed concerns the poor wording of the Second Amendment. There are actually several slight variants, but basically it goes, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Um, what?

That's just badly written, is all. Nobody knows quite what it means, and nobody has ever known what it means, exactly. "State" as in a whole country and its government, like when Louis XIV said "I am the State"? Or an actual U.S. State, such as, say, Connecticut? Does "people" mean populace (collectively), or persons (individuals)? How exactly does "shall not be infringed" interact with "well-regulated"? Those ideas seem to contradict each other. Some people think "Militia" is equivalent to "The National Guard"—but others dispute that. And so on.

Sometimes when words are inscrutable their ambiguity can be exquisite, pregnant with nuance—but this gabbled sentence is not worth all the close textual analysis it's been subjected to. It's just a mess. Any high school English teacher would have circled it in red pencil and scrawled "Vague" next to it in the margin of the page. Any editor would have gone to whoever wrote it and said, "Uh, we have a problem here. This is unclear. What exactly are you trying to say? Let's do a little more work on this."

This is why I'm not in favor of "gun control." I'm in favor of the repeal of the Second Amendment.

...But not permanently. What I think we ought to do is this:

1. Repeal the Second Amendment.
2. Draft five alternate versions that are well-enough written to be clear in their meaning—ranging from one extreme to the other. The NRA could draft the wording of one outlier and the other end could be an outright ban on any citizen owning or possessing any sort of firearm for any reason. The three options in the middle would range between those extremes.
3. Hold a single-issue national referendum. A vote. Make it one of those nifty "instant-runoff" votes (you can Google that) where every voter gets to signal his or her first and second choice, so that a vote for one of the extreme positions wouldn't necessarily remove a person's vote for one of the more moderate positions.
4. Re-insert whichever one wins into the Bill of Rights.

Then, nobody gets to complain. If we as a people (populace) decide we want to arm ourselves to teeth even if somebody's little girl gets shot in the face for no reason every now and then, well, fine. If we decide that anyone who ever lets a gun into their home gets thrown in jail till they rot, well, the people have spoken. (We wouldn't decide either of those things, of course.)

And if we decide that, hey, we're actually a sentient, reasonable, and essentially benevolent nation of humans who can actually do a decent job of balancing freedoms and rights when we set our minds to it, such that most of us will be reasonably happy with the result and as few people as possible will object....

Well, we are, you know. We're not bad people. We're decent people. We should act like it. All we need is a little more clarity, so we can at least all understand what our principles actually are.

The laws we enshrine in our foundational documents might not make everyone equally happy, but they should at least be clear.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the Editorial Page of The Online Photographer.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Parick Perez (partial comment): "As reasonable as your suggested approach may be, implementing it would require first a new amendment implementing the process."

Ed. Note: In the case of partial comments, please see the Comments section for the full text of that reader's comment.

rnewman (partial comment): "Actually, the wording was much clearer to the readers in 1787. Remember the context. The Revolution had officially ended a few years earlier. Everyone (almost) owned at least one firearm. For many it was a need to get food by shooting it. For many more it was a means of protection against crime. The concept of a police force, as developed by Ben Franklin, didn't apply to most of the country. Each individual was expected to protect himself and his family with whatever force was needed. Further, in 1773, the British governor of Massachusetts seized all the firearms the redcoats could find in Boston to prevent any objection to his actions. Finally, remember that the term 'militia' meant something different than today. No national guard or army reserve. If called, every ablebodied free man was expected to respond, bringing his own rifle/musket, with ball and powder.

"All this was common knowledge and of recent memory to the people in 1787. I expect they largely understood that the amendment had a twofold purpose. It was to assure that one could protect family and home against threats, and it was intended to assure that no one could 'hijack' the government, and if a militia call was needed, that they could respond."

Steve Boothe (partial comment): "Actually, the meaning of the Second Amendment is quite clear and concise. A well-regulated militia is defined elsewhere as all able bodied males 17 to 45 years old. Organized militia consists of National Guard and Naval Militia; unorganized militia consists of everyone that meets the requirements that are not in the organized militia. There was no organized, federally funded militia (National Guard) until 1903. The State is the United States, all inclusive. 'The people' has been defined through numerous court rulings over the past 200 years as individuals in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th and 10th amendments. There is no debate, only attempts at obfuscation by detractors. The right of the people (individuals) to keep (own) and bear (use) arms, shall not be infringed. Plain and simple language if ever there was."

Dave: "I have a kindergarten aged daughter. My sense of apathy towards our legislative process has quickly turned to rage. Thanks for the sensible idea."

Paul Amyes: "The sad fact is that to non-Americans it seems that the right to bear arms is more sacred than the right to live. It seems absolutely crazy that the murder of so many people can be seen as collateral damage for allowing an armed society. There seem to have been so many shootings where the death toll is in the tens to twenties and that doesn't seem provide any impetus for change. I wonder how many more will have to die before the average American citizen says enough is enough. America is a great country with so many benefits but the firearm problem is a huge blight."

David L.: "I am in favor of gun ownership having grown up with guns on a farm. However in my opinion, the problem is not so much the guns, but the gun culture. I see it too much in this country. There is a level of insanity in gun culture/doomsday preppers. Guns have fetish status to many people, they provide strong feelings of power and invincibility. I go to gun ranges and see so much zeal with weapons. Pick up any firearm magazine for more examples.

"Old taboos against guns targeting people are faded. When I was young it was inconceivable to point a gun at another person. Guns were for hunting, and for the army. If there was an intruder it was normal to persuade him to leave, while displaying one's firearm, sometimes unloaded. It was considered poor taste to use silhouette targets as I remember. People simply were not targets. Nor were innocent people. That was very taboo, but not today apparently."

T Bannor: "The reason for the Second Amendment was not, in part, because the founders feared a takeover of the government, as seems to be widely believed. It was because many of the founders did not believe in a standing army. Hence the 'security of a free state' verbiage. If you don't have a standing army, you need an armed populace to defend the nation. Switzerland has this arrangement today and has higher gun ownership than the U.S. The difference is, training and membership in the militia is mandatory."

Open Mike: Texas Wants to Secede

Apparently a number of citizens of the State of Texas would like to secede from the United States following the re-election of President Obama.

For once, I side with the most rabid of right-wingers: I say, let's let 'em.

Please?

It's not that I dislike Texans, mind you. I like every Texan I've personally ever met. It's just that I would really be interested in watching this happen. I think it could be tremendously entertaining.

Presumably they would make do with their current State Constitution for a while, but why wouldn't they write a whole new Constitution? They could. They could change the whole government if they wanted to. Even the type of government. Just the arguments over all that could keep us entertained for years.

They'd even be free to rename the new country (Conservatopia?)—although admittedly "The Republic of Texas" has a certain majesty to it. Let's face it, Texas is a great name.

Guns would be legal, or maybe mandatory, but would they have an army? A draft? For sure they'd only have one political party. The Ten Commandments would be on every courthouse lawn, no doubt, but would they actually write Old Testament injunctions into their new laws? Those tend to get dicey when it actually comes down to specifics. To obey Leviticus or not to obey Leviticus? You can see how much fun this might be.

There would be a few disadvantages, of course. The map of the U.S. would look funny until we got used to it. College kids would need passports for spring break on South Padre Island. And all our flags would have to be changed.

Unless we just split California in two to make up for it. That could work.

The new country would be responsible for protecting its own stretch of the Rio Grande, which could get ugly. We'd have to protect our own borders with Texas, too, though, since, presumably, vans packed full of desperate Texas liberals and hippies from Austin would be trying to sneak back into the United States all the time.

Or would Oklahoma and Louisiana want to join the new country? How would Texas feel about that? "Well...."

On the good side, the Dallas Cowboys would no longer be America's Team. And, no more U.S. presidents from Texas. Works for me.

There would be some questions, of course. What about Federal installations and infrastructure, and their share of the national debt? I say they should pay us back. Well, at least partly. And they'd need all new treaties with all the rest of the world's countries and so forth. All the while trying to keep their government really, really small.

Some people worry that the new country wouldn't do very well. But it would be the 40th largest country on earth and have an economy larger than Australia's, according to what I've heard. They'd do fine. This is no reason not to let them go.

Really, this is something I'd like to see. Talk about political theater. Just think of it: the election for the presidency of Texas. Wouldn't you like to follow that? Best reality TV ever.

And who knows, maybe they'd come up with something better than what they've got now and we could all learn something from them. Could happen.

Anyway, Texans are petitioning for their independence, and, by rule, the White House owes them a response sometime around mid-December. I can synopsize it for you right now: it will say "Read the 14th Amendment, ya knuckleheads!" Only more politely, and with lots more words. (Article 1 basically says States can't deprive American citizens of their rights and privileges as American citizens.)

They're no fun.

Oh well.

Mike

ADDENDUM Monday morning: My feelings are a little hurt that this post set a record for traffic on a Sunday, for the whole seven years I've been doing this. Jeez,  if so many people are going to come read something I write, couldn't it at least be something about photography? Sniff.

Secondly, of course I was just poking fun here. But if you're interested, the Wall Street Journal says there would be one particularly big upside and one equally big downside to secession for the states where the biggest petitions are coming from, in an article called "What seceding from the U.S. will cost you." I admit the upside is a biggie. Thanks to Paris for the link.

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic ramblings that sometimes appears on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ken White (partial comment): "Texas fought its own war of independence and made quite a good job of doing so. Many Texans take great pride in having been an independent country. It's interesting to live in Texas not having grown up here. It is a state of mind as much as a state within the union of the United States. It is a big place full of friendly people with big ideas who dream big dreams. Don't mess with Texas."

Marc Gibeault: "It's even more fun from here (Montreal)."

Stephen (partial comment): "As a native Texan, I would like to point out the following [...] around 117,000 people have signed their name in favor of this concept. According to a quick Google search, the state population is currently in the neighborhood of 25.6 million. This means that those 117k signatures represent less than half of a percent of Texas citizens. Again, less than 1/2 of 1%. (Assuming I did my math right. Which is always an assumption....)"

Mike replies: We're in bad shape if I'm the one who's supposed to be checking anybody's math.

MJFerron: "As one who lives in the Austin area I can assure you despite what one may read there is zero talk of secession of any kind in regular daily life. Nothing. It's just fluff and newspaper filler. Do I believe a state has the right to secede? Hmm, maybe under the right set of circumstances which I don't think exist at the moment."

John Camp: "I'd say that roughly half of the interesting people in the U.S. come from Texas. I'd include George Bush, who I found interesting: 'I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.' Also, Kinky Friedman: 'Remember: Y'all is singular. All y'all is plural. All y'all's is plural possessive.' One of my Rules of Life was formulated while driving along I-40: 'Never order a chicken fried steak at a Holiday Inn in Amarillo, Texas.' As a new New Mexican, I'm proud to say that we threw Texans out of here on several occasions. Unlike Mike, I have met some Texans that I didn't like, but, I have to say, there weren't very many of those; they tend to be pretty likable, compared, say, to people from either major coast. What other state has an entire town devoted almost entirely to art (Marfa) or almost entirely to books (Archer City)?"

Open Mike: Refs

I assume there must be some fans of American football out there in the audience. So can somebody please explain to me what's going on with the refs?

Halfway through Week Three, it's looking to me like the NFL is bent on proving that the regular refs are worth their weight in gold. As soon as the Bears seemed to have their game wrapped up, I switched to the 'Skins-Bengals game...and I can hardly remember seeing a game that seemed more out of control.

There was one incident where a Redskins receiver who was double-teamed got blatantly interfered with by both defenders, who had him on the ground by the time the ball arrived—and no call. During the bizarre ending of the game the refs seemingly let the whole Cincinnati team and staff wander out on the field; there were problems with the clock, half-calls, long waits for reviews...a bit of a mess.

Then the network switched to another game, N.O.-K.C., and the same sort of thing seemed to be going on—a long wait to sort out what appeared to be a non-call on the field.

What the heck happened to the regular refs and when are they going to be back?

I obviously haven't been paying enough attention.

Mike

Illustration: Referee Alberton Riveron by Bill Frakes/SI

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Open Mike: HD Downloads

Charlie Haden and Hank Jones at the "Come Sunday" sessions. Photo
courtesy Emarcy Records.

I love music listening—that's all I do, by intent, listen—and I've been an "audiophile" (for some definition of that contentious term) for most of my life—all of my adult life. I'm not a nut about it. Every seven to fifteen years, finances and patience permitting, I revamp my stereo system into something a bit more tolerable than it was, then I fuggedabboudit. When I lived in Woodstock in the late '90s, I actually took out a bank loan to buy a new stereo. It's that important to me.

I've been in the midst of that periodic upgrade recently, and I'm pleased to say it's been going well. I had a great room in Woodstock (best ever) and I have a bad room now, but I've been hearing better sound recently than I've ever had before.

What touched this all off is that my previous system had two sources, one old and one new: vinyl and computer USB audio. But the bare-bones approach I used—it was based around a headphone amplifier as a preamp—was limited to CD-quality resolution for the computer audio. And I wanted to experiment with HD audio.

Surprisingly, perhaps, one of the best upgrades in this whole process has been one of the cheapest. Accordingly, I have a recommendation for you, but I have to warn you, it comes at the end of this post, and it's a bit of a trek to get there...

Open Mike: The Red-Tailed Hawk

(Note that there's no picture with this post.)

I've taken to walking to try to improve my deteriorating heart-health (having your ankle chained to the leg of the desk all day isn't all that good for you, turns out). I walk a circuit around the river (bridge to bridge) because it's flat. Our thoughtful town fathers installed not one but two paths—one for walking, the other for anything on non-motorized wheels. Trés civilized.

Yesterday was a perfect day for walking: clear, 64°F (~18°C), windy. And partly cloudy—but they were those gorgeous, fleecy, lit-from-above clouds that seem made for the camera. (I think those of you on the East Coast are due to get the same weather today.)

Regarding that "made for the camera" comment, I know it's said you should always carry a camera, that the best camera is the one you have with you, etc.—you know the adages. I didn't take a camera with me yesterday, however, on purpose—because I need to keep moving, rather than continually stopping to work a picture.

And a good thing. On a fine Saturday, the people are out. I would have gotten distracted by warm'n'fuzzy little human-interest ops. A small boy tethering a huge bundle of helium balloons, fer instance (okay, a little sappy); a couple sitting on the riverbank picturesquely holding hands; a very pretty blonde mother with a mop-headed blond child on a recumbent bike with—never seen this before—a recumbent-bike sidecar; a very tiny baby (maybe a year old—with his/her parent, of course) feeding a flotilla, an absolute Armada, of mallards—I mean like two hundred of them. Not greatly promising ops, maybe, but good guilty pleasure stuff if you've got a camera in your hands.

I might have been able to ignore all those if I'd been feeling disciplined. But then there was this: right next to the town's life-sized, lifelike statue of three bears...a guy in a bear suit. I know. (And, don't ask me.) How could I have resisted that? I would have stopped for that, for sure, no question.

I even encountered some bonafide wildlife. I got right up on a red-tailed hawk. It was at eye level and not more than eight feet away (I would have said six, and I really think it was six, but if I say six you'll think I'm exaggerating) when it took off right across my path. And get this, I didn't even notice it until it took off. It was right in front of me, on the lowest branch of a small sapling, but there I was, just trundling blindly along, dum-de-dum-dum.

This may be nothing more than a gentle conceit, dear Reader, but here's what I believe. If I'd been photographing rather than just walking, I wouldn't have missed that hawk. I would have noticed. Having a camera in your hands just puts you into a heightened state of seeing, one tier higher on the visual alertness scale. Just holding a camera I miss less. It's not entirely something I can turn on and off at will. The camera is the switch.

Going by the weather, at least, yesterday was the first day of the fall, and fall is by far the best season in Wisconsin. Not a day too soon.

Mike

"Open Mike," the moniker for the Editorials on TOP (often but not always or completely off-topic), shows up on Sundays.

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Featured Comment by Jim Simmons: "I hear ya, Mike. When I was in my 20s and lived with a camera strap practically sewn into my right shoulder, I saw everything around me. Heightened visual presence at all times. Having spent a few years in art school helped hone that discipline of course.

"But then I took on dependents and responsibilities and other forms of adultism. The camera would get left behind. And slowly my mind began to be overwhelmed with the mental noise that Eckard Tolle has taught me I am sometimes consumed by. I can now walk for miles and not see a damned thing. My head is so busy 'thinking' and my eyes are so dulled, it's a wonder I don't get run over most days. Common phrase in my family—'Earth to Jim.' I am realising more and more that I need to carry a camera and work it as a form of therapy. Photographing and 'trying' to play the guitar are the two best forms of forcing thought to leave my head. I need it terribly!"

Featured Comment by Lois Elling: "I feel naked if I take a walk without a camera, but I'm also well aware of the fact that I do less walking with it than without it. So, I understand your choice to walk without one.

"Last June I was walking at a local reservoir and was walking on a cloud because I'd just spent several minutes photographing a beautiful great blue heron. He seemed to be quite patient with me and let me shoot away. After he left, I moved on down the path, rounded a bend, and was surprised by a hawk flying out of a low-hanging branch right in front of me. And I did have my camera with me. Of course, I kicked myself for not paying more attention. On the way back, I found the hawk (a juvenile) again and got some pictures, although he wasn't nearly as accessible as the heron. Some images just have to be burned into your brain, rather than on film or sensor, I guess."

Open Mike: Five Books To Make You Think

Michel de Montaigne by François Quesnel and
Geoffrey Canada by Marco Grob

Recognize this title? You've seen it before—I stole it from Ctein. I've wanted to write my own take on the idea ever since his column appeared.

I can't speak for Ctein's picks, but my choices are books that will make you think as a side-effect—while you're being entertained. None of these five books are too heavy...depending, of course, on how much thinking they inspire in you. They're books that are deserving of the highest accolade my own writing ever got (from Sally Mann)—they're "tasty."

In no particular order—

Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence by Geoffrey Canada. (The title refers to the increasing lethality of the weapons commonly used in inner-city fights over the years.) You've probably seen Geoffrey Canada on television*—as the Founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, he's become a leading social activist and educator, and he was the kid who was waiting for Superman in the award-winning movie Waiting for Superman. Before all that, however, came this 1995 memoir about what it's like to deal with daily violence while growing up as a poor kid in the inner city (in his case, the South Bronx). Just read the short first chapter about the stolen jacket (which you can do online), and you'll get the measure of this one. It's a wonderful little book, one that I read shortly after it came out (on my brother's recommendation—hi, Scott) and have never forgotten

Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton. (U.K. link; U.K. cover shown.) My favorite book yet from one of my favorite writers. The author freely admits that his title will turn off people on both sides of the debate; atheists will react by saying "but I don't need religion!" and the religious will say, "but I'm not an atheist, so this book isn't for me." But not so fast. The book is an entertaining and enlightening (and dare I say, original) look at the way religion and its institutions function at a social and emotional level to keep communities healthy. Botton, who describes himself as "very respecful [of religion] and [yet] completely impious," necessarily overlooks religion's shortcomings, and some of the "solutions" he offers in the spirit of being helpful are only remotely likely to come about. But those are quibbles here. It's a delightful short read, and if this one doesn't make you think, then...well, you're probably not a thinker. Note that I've linked to the hardcover—that's deliberate. It's a lovely little example of fine bookmaking, and you'd be cheating yourself out of a pretty little artifact for your bookshelf by reading the book (um, like I did) on the Kindle.

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen—who, by the way, looks a bit like Abraham Lincoln might have if he had grown old. This is an almost outlandishly popular book for a history title, having sold more than a million copies since 1995. Intellectually, it's like candy. Just a treat. Every nation has it "mythos"—the inspiring lore that props up its power structure and unifies its citizens, like the "fact" that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a boy and then refused to lie about it to his father**—and there's nothing wrong with that on the face of it; peoples and nations need their stories. But the truth behind the stories is often far more fascinating, and, not surprisingly, reflects human nature with greater authenticity. (Note that the readers' reviews on Amazon run on arguably longer than the book itself, and contain every conceivable slant on interpretation. I suggest you just read the book yourself instead; it's easier, and much more fun, and afterwards you can make up your own mind.)

Montaigne: Essays, translated by John M. Cohen. (U.K. link.) Sarah Bakewell's brand spanking new biography of Michel de Montaigne, How to Live, which I loved, has ignited a brushfire of interest in the French philosopher and writer, inventor of the essay and type genus of the reflective introvert. And that got me to thinking about reading Montaigne. Screech, in England, and Frame, in America, are considered the standard translations, and although of course I have the 1300-page Frame tome (doesn't everybody? I can't conceive otherwise), which is always described as "contemporary," it's actually pretty creaky, being as old as I am (vintage 1957), and Frame tries to respect the somewhat unfamiliar diction of Montaigne's 16th-century French. Like most people, I read several of the essays in school, and acquaint myself with one or two more from time to time, and then put the brick back in place up on the shelf. So I did a little readin'n'research, and concluded that the best volume for actually reading Montaigne is John M. Cohen's Penguin Books selected works. Cohen's English has an easy fluency that I find good to read, and, let's face it, you really don't need to read all of Montaigne to get a good idea. Better to read Cohen's selections and Bakewell's biography together. Frame's language, admirable though his translation undoubtedly is, seems halting and a bit opaque by contrast.

Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal. (U.K. link.) The author looks at human nature through the prism of primatology. Some readers complain that he anthropomorphizes chimpanzees too much, although that might just as well be a function of human beings' extreme reluctance to associate any of our own honored feelings and impulses to animal behavior and instinctual programming. Theory aside—this is a popular book rather than a scientific one—the renowned Dutch ethologist and primatologist is a facile and entertaining writer and a fine storyteller, and at the very least you'll come away from this book having "met" the bonobo as a distinct cousin of the chimps (and of ours), and with a heightened sense and appreciation for the drama of the lives and societies of these amazing creatures. (If you can read the famous story of Luit without emotion, you have a steelier heart than I.) He also really does make you think about our animal nature—however you come down on the issue in your own mind. Not the last word on human nature—what is?—but a rewarding (and thought-provoking) read for sure.

Mike

*Apologies for linking to a right-wing conservative show***.

**Itself an invention, made up by a popular biographer of Washington, Mason Locke Weems, after Washington's death.

***UPDATE Monday the 3rd: 'Kay, so here's the joke. The Colbert Report, the source of that interview link, is a liberal show, but the premise of the show (and the source of much of the show's humor) is that the host is a right-wing demagogue. On the show, part of the gag is that Stephen Colbert, the host, always stays in character. So what I'm doing here, y'see, is continuing the gag, by pretending that I think The Colbert Report actually is a "right-wing conservative show." If I had really linked to a right-wing conservative show, I wouldn't have apologized for it. Because that wouldn't have been funny. Are we clear now? It wasn't my intention here to insult anyone. My mistake, to assume that everyone would know the premise of that show. Incorrect assumption, it turns out.

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts by Yr. Hmbl. Host that appears only, but not always, on Sundays.

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Featured Comment by Dave: "Great list Mike. Lies My Teacher Told Me has been on my night stand for over a year. Maybe I'll finally pick it up. While your on the subject of books that make you think I'd like to suggest Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright. Nonzero really changed the way I think about world history and human relations. To me, Nonzero was just as big of a mental bombshell as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel."

Featured Comment by valerie: "Have you seen Sacred Economics? Charles Eisenstein...if not check it out!"

Featured Comment by Ed Kirkpatrick: "Might I suggest, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt? 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction; 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction. Couldn't put this one down...."

Mike replies: Great minds think alike; it's on my bedside table.

Open Mike: The Saga of the Speakers, Part II (OT)

New midrange and tweeter drivers installed by AudioVentures of Waukesha. Note well-made inserts filling in the larger openings for the stock drivers.

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[Note: "Open Mike" is a series of off-topic essays by Yr. Hmbl. Blggr. that usually appear on Sundays. This one's a little late.]

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You might recall that I wrote under this rubric a few weeks ago about my momentous recent purchase of new/used speakers. My old ones were teenagers, and I had been getting a little impatient with them.

I'll sum up the previous article so you don't have to go re-read it: I chose a used pair of "budget" speakers from a "boutique" high-end or audiophile name brand and bought a secondhand but supposedly never used pair from a seller on Audiogon. And they turned out to be so incredibly badly and cheaply built that I half suspected they might actually have been counterfeits.

A brief tip about buying stereo equipment: never buy the budget line. Like any generalization this isn't always true, but in general, whatever your budget, you want to stay in the middle part of a manufacturer's lineup or higher. Even McIntosh, a legendary American maker of very high-quality, very well-built traditional components, known for its preamplifiers among other things, once made a cheap-crap budget preamplifier (the C15). It came out in 1998 at $1,500—and it was much worse, and much more poorly made, than preamps from manufacturers whose best preamps cost around $1,500 at the time, despite names that weren't nearly as prestigious. Stick in the area of the product lineup that made the name famous; don't assume that the name will somehow elevate the cheaper offerings.

One of my mistakes in buying these speakers was in buying the $2,500 offering from a manufacturer whose mainstream, bread-and-butter products are in the $5,000–10,000 range. Big mistake. (Note that I'm referring here to new, retail prices—I was buying used, and I paid a lot less.) It would have been a lot smarter to buy from a manufacturer whose best-selling or top-of-the-line products are in the $2,500 new/retail range.

The enchanted stereo store
I've been an audio hobbyist for most of my life, and I've even written on the topic of the unfortunate decline of stereo and audio retail stores. So when my new/old speakers arrived with the woofer drivers on one channel dead, I didn't know where to take them to be repaired. I Googled "speaker repair Milwaukee" (Milwaukee being the nearest large city to me), and one of the first results that came up was a shop nearby that specializes in bringing old speakers from "my" era back to life. It's called Audio Ventures, and it's run by Bill Waara, who is my age, and his young nephew Andy.

It's also close enough to my home that I could walk to it—and I never even knew it was there. This is a mystery so strange it borders on the supernatural. The windowless storefront is small and unprepossessing, and I guess I must have assumed, years ago, that it had to be some gnarly little car-audio joint or something. I've driven right by it hundreds of times—many hundreds of times—without even seeing it.

Turns out it's not gnarly or small by any measure—it's a wonderland. Although up a flight of stairs from street level, it has a beautifully finished reception area, multiple equipment showrooms, a large shop, and several large warehouse rooms chock full of neatly arranged classic and vintage stereo equipment.

Visit? Friend, I could live there.

So I've thought about this, and I've come to a tentative conclusion: I think the explanation is that it actually wasn't there all those times I drove by. I think it magically appeared the instant I needed it—and that both Andy and Bill are in fact enchanted leprechauns. This is not the Occam's Razor explanation, but best fits the available facts as I perceive them.

My big leap of faith
Audio Ventures is nominally famous for restoring old JBLs, but that's really just the tip of a big 'berg. They rebuild all sorts of speakers and many makes of vintage electronics. Bill Waara turns out to be not only a speaker repairman, but a speaker designer—and a really talented one, according to my ears. My very experienced ears. He played me a long audition on some monitor-style three-ways that I thought couldn't possibly be that good, and they were tremendous—it was one of the ten best speakers auditions I've heard in my life. And I'm the type of guy that I remember the other nine. So what were they?

When I first saw these, I thought, "Those aren't going to convince me."
How wrong you were, woofer-breath.

They don't even have a name. He designed and built them himself. Bill doesn't make "models"—each of his creations is a one-of-a-kind custom job. It comes from having developed a personal style and a technical approach over the course of repairing literally thousands of pairs of old speakers—any of which might range from a clean-and-resolder job to a total rebuild with all new drivers and all-new, custom-made crossovers.

Bill has a signature sound—open, vivid without being harsh, very dynamic, and that sound great loud. (Great soft too, but most speakers sound okay at low volumes. Not very many sound good at high volume.) Not an accident that his audition was meant to reproduce what you'd hear standing in "about the eighth row" of a rock concert. It did, except it was better, cleaner, clearer, and more articulate that any live music I've ever heard.

I was so smitten with Bill's skills that I took a very big (and potentially very stupid) leap. Rather than return my sub-par speakers to the guy who had sold them to me, I opted to have them rebuilt.

Speaker designer Bill Waara of Audio Ventures next to one of his
one-of-a-kind custom creations. The man's an artist.

This is not a smart move, on the face of it. I was going past the point of no return—literally, because obviously once I had them rebuilt I could no longer return them to the guy who sold them to me. Rather, I would end up with a pair of non-resellable, one-of-a-kind speakers in which I had sunk way too much money (despite a partial refund issued by the seller). If I hated the finished result, I'd be stuck with a very expensive white elephant.

But I took the plunge.

Two coils and a cheap cap: one of the great swindles in audio is encapsulated in the word "minimalist." What it means 90% of the time is, "we're saving on parts." This is the entire crossover of one of my new/used "audiophile" speakers ($2,500 retail, remember(!)) as it came from the factory. (Note the broken solder joint, the culprit behind the dead woofers.)

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Things of beauty: These are the two crossovers Bill and Andy of Audio Ventures designed and build for my restored/rebuilt speakers.
Do they sound better? Like night and day.

What we really needed to do was to get better midrange drivers into the things. The midranges of the original speakers were inexpensive, low-quality drive units that created a large suckout at the upper end of their range that was not subtle—you could hear it plainly on most program material. I opted to have Bill replace the tweeters too, simply because he has his favorite drivers and he knows how to cross them over. I just wanted to give him some design flexibility, rather than make him start from unmapped territory with tweeters he wasn't familiar with.

We left the original four woofers alone.

And the result? Oh, but you will have to wait again, Grasshopper. That's for Part III of this saga, coming up in "Open Mike" a few weeks from now. Suffice to say...well, what, you think enchanted leprechauns who appear out of nowhere just when they are needed are going to create speakers that aren't magical?!?

Mike

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Question from Ed Kirkpatrick: "Sounds like great fun Lucy, but you need to 'splain what a crossover is and how it works...please?"

Mike replies: In multi-driver speakers, each driver or drive unit is assigned one part of the frequency spectrum to turn into sound. In a classic three-way, you have a "woofer" driver for the low frequencies, a "tweeter" driver for the high frequencies, and a midrange driver for the frequencies in the middle, where most of the music is. (Think shadows, highlights, and midtones respectively [g]). But the signal comes in from the amplifier all in one piece, and where the loudspeaker as whole stands or falls is how the duties are passed off between these (in this case) three ranges. The "crossover" refers to the electronic bits that determine which driver takes which part of the signal to turn into sound. In a "passive" (unpowered, non-adjustable) crossover, which is essentially a filter, the goal  is the seamless integration of the three drivers such that they all sound coherent together and together create a reasonably flat frequency response over the whole audible spectrum.

Crossover design is an art in itself, and it's also the part where most manufacturers skimp, because the bits are on the inside of the speaker where most purchasers never look. As you might expect, there are various "schools of thought" when it comes to crossover design and implementation amongst audio aficionados, but that's another story.

The biggest expenses in marketing commercial home audio speakers are a) the cabinet, b) shipping the cabinet (they can be big and heavy, which makes them expensive to shift about the world), the cardboard boxes and padding in which to ship the cabinet (I kid you not, this is a significant expense for speaker manufacturers) and advertising and marketing. The parts that ought to be the biggest expenses are...well, the parts, meaning the drivers and the crossover. But this is in fact where manufacturers have the opportunity to cut costs. And this they often do...sometimes with a vengeance.

Featured Comment by Robert Roaldi: "Do you have any idea how much it cheers me up to hear stories like this about people with deep knowledge who actually know what they're doing? Somehow, and I can't prove this, this culture actively tries to get rid of people like these. This is just my opinion, of course, but it's a deep gut feeling I have."

Mike replies: Me too. I was talking to Bill Waara about the way that a lot of audiophiles have trouble stepping outside of what I called the "status ranking"—the idea that speaker A which costs x "must" be superior to speaker B which costs y because they've been told it is. And Bill said "I have spent my whole life outside of the status ranking." A memorable quote, for me.

Question from Manuel [see the rest of Manuel's comment in the Comments section]: "Your new midrange driver appears to be sourced from Focal, the French brand once known as JMLab. Am I right?"

Mike replies: You are correct sir. Bill appears to be partial to Focal drivers, and in fact among commercial speakers that I've heard, his custom speakers sound most like Focal Utopias to me.

Featured Comment by Dan: "Now I'll have to check this place out the next time I'm in Milwaukee—I have an account I call on there. I had something similar done with some speakers my brother built. Beautiful cabinets and an OK sound. He had been guided by a guy who had owned a speaker company out of SoCal. So I took them to Van L Speakerworks on the 5700 block of Western Ave. in Chicago. He worked magic on them. This was in the mid '90s. Have never tired of them and am impressed every time I listen."

Mike replies: I know Van. I once wrote an article called "The Great Chicago Audio Walkabout." The concept was that I visited every audio emporium I could find in the greater Chicagoland area—this was when I lived there, of course—and did a serious audition of the best high-end demo system at each shop. Then I evaluated the sound of the respective demos based purely on sound quality, with no thought given to anything else. The article was rejected by several magazines and never published—it naturally criticized several influential dealers—but the winners of the Walkabout were Van L Speakerworks and Holm Audio, two very different dealers who nevertheless both knew good sound.

Featured Comment by Jim in Denver: "I've been into speaker building since I was quite young, helping my father.... At a glance I can most certainly verify that the crossover components are of fantastic quality. And the Focal aerogel midrange? Wonderful! Eagerly waiting the next installment of this story. :-) "

Open Mike: Stakistics

David Rudisha listening to the Kenyan national anthem at his gold medal ceremony. The names "Rudisha" and "Bolt" belong in the same sentence. (Photo: screen shot from NBC Sports.)

So I've been addicted to the Olympics for the past two weeks. I'm preparing for withdrawal—and even so, I will be unprepared. So I've been watching a lot more telelvision than I usually do. If I had the stomach for this much television as a regular diet, I'd write a media-watch column—there really are some entertaining idiocies that flutter past.

For example, I swear I heard the following on the national news the other day. The story was about the employment report, and the point being made was that businesses were hiring. So they cut to a business owner, who says this: "We've hired six new employees this year. Started out the year with four or five people, and now? Twelve."

Made me laugh. I'm bad at arithmetic, but even I can tell that that is not the guy you want to be going to for your statistics.

(In related innumeracy, the local weatherman was reporting on the rainfall totals, and he pointed to my county, where the map was clearly emblazoned with "0.20," as he intoned, "...and a quarter of an inch in Waukesha." Again, not good at fractions here, but....)

Nice guys finishing first
I've been doing pretty well with the Olympics. Thursday was genuinely thrilling, with the incomparable Usain Bolt adding to his legacy and legend in fine form, and a Masai warrior from Kenya named David Rudisha delivering an accomplishment as stunning as Bolt's in Beijing, setting a world record and getting the gold medal in the gruelling 800 running from the front. Wow. (Most records in that race are set with the help of a "rabbit," a fast runner setting the pace in the first part of the race before fading back.) I've run 800s, way back when, and that is one damn tough race*. They showed a special on him, and he seemed like a nice guy, too. It's the first WR in the 800 at the Olympics since 1976. 

I have to remember that name. David Rudisha. There really is something magnificent about truly great athletic performances—people doing things nobody else can do.

I had a rough time getting into the beach volleyball, but I finally managed. Every time I turn it on, I picture myself trying it for about two minutes, determining quickly  that jumping and running on sand on purpose is stupid, and heading for the beach towel. Turns out it's not a bad game, though, although I'm still not sure why. At least it moves along.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to note that some Olympic events have a decidedly arbitrary feel about them. I mean, throwing a ball on a chain as far as you can might be traditional, somehow (I always picture a guy being released from a chain gang, celebrating), but who's the guy who said, "I know! We can all get on kid's bikes and go like crazy over a bunch of bumps!" It's very entertaining, though. Even though that poor girl who face-planted into the front side of a bump isn't going to know where she is until about next Wednesday.

The guy who decided they should play a variant of soccer in a swimming pool went too far, though. It might be fun to do, but I'm sorry, that's just too dumb to be a sport.

I had in mind coming up with more Olympic events in the same spirit—here's one: climb up and down a telephone pole, then race a hundred yards on a pogo stick. Sound like an Olympic event to you?

Here's the thing—I'd probably watch it.

Mike

P.S. This is the OT column for this week. Come back tomorrow morning (or tonight) for some entertaining camera geekery.

*Seriously, if you are young enough and fit enough that you're sure it won't kill you, go find a quarter-mile track and run around it twice as fast as you can, then tell me if you've ever been able to make yourself feel worse in such a short time.

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Featured Comment by Jim Costello: "I kind of lost interest after the Greco-Roman Synchronized Equestrian Water Polo was over."

Featured Comment by Isaac: "Water polo was, along with wrestling, the most difficult sport I have ever played. It was brutal. Agree that it isn't much fun to watch though. There are professional leagues in Europe."

Featured Comment by David A. Goldfarb: "As far as I'm concerned, nothing beats a good badminton scandal."

Mike replies: Wasn't that great? Two teams both trying their best to lose. They could make that into a whole category if you ask me.

Featured Comment by Kevin Purcell: "The Outside Magazine profile of Rudisha's coach, Brother Colm O'Connell, is online—it's called 'The Irish Priest Who Trains Olympic Gold Medalists.' Isn't that apropos of the previous column about the death of magazine stands and rise of online magazines?"

Open Mike: Our German Connection

Most Americans aren't "from here." We "come from" somewhere. My own heritage is mostly English and Scottish—both of my parents' families come from Indianapolis, Indiana, a center of the Scottish diaspora in America.

Wisconsin, where my father relocated our family when I was seven, absorbed immigrants of many nationalities—Czech, Polish, Swiss. They're all outnumbered, however, by the Germans. In the same year Wisconsin became a state, 1848, many Germans were forced into exile by the collapse of the Revolutions of 1848, and many—mostly from Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Brandenburg—came to Wisconsin. Here, those reformists and former revolutionaries created the basis for Wisconsin's progressive political traditions.

In the second half of the 19th century, more than a million Germans immigrated to America. Milwaukee, then and now Wisconsin's largest city, was deliberately transformed into a center of Germanic culture. It became known as Deutsch-Athen, or "the German Athens." In 1900, fully one in three Wisconsin residents was either German-born or had at least one parent who was. German was the primary language of the Milwaukee public schools until 1922—all the way through the First World War.

According to local historian John Gurda, there were two heavy body-blows to Germanic culture in Milwaukee in particular and Wisconsin in general in the early 20th century. The first, of course, was the First World War, when suddenly German descent was something Americans wanted to be very quiet about. Much of Milwaukee's German pride was de-emphasized in those years. The second was Prohibition—Milwaukee's German culture had revolved about beer-brewing and beer-imbibing, and although many of Milwaukee's famous beers—Blatz, Schlitz, Gettelman, Pabst, and Miller—survived, Prohibition interrupted many Germanic traditions locally. Today, all but one of the great beers are gone. Miller, the sole survivor, is still brewed here, but the company is owned by the British.

Wisconsin's German heritage isn't so evident now on the surface of things. Our most important immigrant group is now Mexicans. We are still the sister-city of Schwerin, the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where many of our German families originally came from, but relatively few residents of the city know that. Still, many of the city's most prominent families have German surnames. And although "Smith" is said to be the most common surname in America, here in Wisconsin they're far outnumbered by "Schmitts" and "Schmidts."

Mike

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic posts by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that appears only, but not always, on Sundays.

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Featured Comment by Aubrey Silvertooth: "There are still a bunch us here in Texas. Many did change the name from Schmidt to Smith during World War I. That almost caused a divorce between my German great-grandfather and my English great-grandmother. The discord lasted until 1972, when he passed away. She almost had a coronary when she saw the headstone at the cemetary said Schmidt instead of Smith. There are a slew of Czechs down here as well. Come visit one day!"

Featured Comment by Paris: "It is odd to think about the inter-European prejudices that used to be common here. My wife's best friend from high school was warned, seriously, not to marry her German surnamed boyfriend because 'Germans all beat their wives.' It's been 30 years and so far so good, but we're keeping an eye on him. My father, whose surname was not obviously Italian, went away to college in the 1930s, when 'wop' and 'guinea' jokes were common. He never told anyone about his nationality, and never brought a college friend home to meet his immigrant parents."

Featured Comment by Carl Blesch: "I have to weigh in here as a Milwaukee native of German heritage. I was told that my grandmother's brother, a university professor in the early 20th century, had to stop teaching German during WWI, and to keep his job, learned Spanish and started teaching it. One of my early ancestors, upon emigrating from Germany, opened a brewery in Green Bay. I saw a photo of it in that city's Neville Public Museum. During my 1950s–60s childhood in suburban Milwaukee, I took gymnastic lessons at the Milwaukee Turners, a club descended from the German 'Turnverein' tradition. And I remember attending the annual folk festival at the Milwaukee auditorium, which of course was dominated by Milwaukee's two predominant ethnic groups, the Germans and Poles."